King Charles tells President Trump: 'We must reflect on our shared responsibility to safeguard nature'

                                                          

King Charles - 'nature is our most precious and irreplaceable asset'

During this week's visit to the USA, King Charles issued a reminder to his hosts on the importance of nature. As far as President Trump and Vice-president J.D. Vance were concerned, his words, alas, probably fell on deaf ears, but they were greeted warmly by other politicians. This is what the King said in his speech to Congress:

"As we look toward the next 250 years, we must reflect on our shared responsibility to safeguard nature - our most precious and irreplaceable asset.

"Millennia before our nations existed, before any border drawn, the mountains of Scotland and Appalachia were one - a single, continuous range,forged in the ancient collision of continents.

"The natural wonders of the United States of America are indeed a unique asset.

"Generations of Americans have risen to this calling: indigenous, political and civic leaders, people in rural communities and cities alike, have all helped to protect and nurture what President Theodore Roosevelt called 'the glorious heritage' of this land’s extraordinary natural splendour on which so much of its prosperity has always depended.

"Yet, even as we celebrate the beauty that surrounds us, our generation must decide how to address the collapse of critical natural systems which threatens far more than the harmony and essential diversity of nature.

"We ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems - in other words, nature’s own economy - provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security."

Ornithological titles on Kent and Suffolk by Ticehurst brothers catch the eye at Gloucestershire auction

This collection of mainly ornithological titles (and ephemera) has sold for £800 at an auction conducted earlier this month by Dominic Winter at their premises in Cirencester in Gloucestershire. It is thought that the most valuable of the volumes is the first edition (1909) of Norman Ticehurst's A History of the Birds of Kent.  Also in the Lot was a copy of The Birds of Suffolk by his younger brother, Claud.

What could be better before breakfast? Calling Yellow-browed Warbler puts on a bit of show

                                                 

On the look-out - Ade (left) and Sam

LATE in the second episode of 5 TV series, Sam & Ade Go Birding, an unidentified birder is watching an Avocet feeding outside a wetland hide at Cley in north Norfolk  when he comes up with an unexpected comment.

"I’d rather watch a common close bird close up than a rare bird 500 yards away," he says.

The show’s co-star, Sam West, a birder of more than 20 years, expresses agreement, but does he really agree -  and, if so,  how many other birders would concur?

This was one of the questions that bubbled up during this engaging episode which was entirely set in north Norfolk - first the Holkham estate, with its many different habitats, then Cley, of which Sam remarks, somewhat fancifully, "if it was a musical instrument, it would be a Stradivarius".

At one point, Ade, who is content to watch commonplace birds such as Robins, describes twitching as "a kind of madness",  and he takes his pal to task for forever checking his Birdguides phone app for news of the latest rarities.

"Are you posting on your little website?" he teases.

Sam seems to acknowledge that Ade may have a point and, at one point in the episode,  says birding "should not just be about the rare birds but about enjoying those we’ve got in front of us".

That said, it is the pre-breakfast discovery of a relatively rare Yellow-browed Warbler that seems to give him a particular adrenaline rush.

Perhaps the best moments of Episode 2 is where the duo share a sense of exultation as they watch flights of Brent Geese and, even more spectacularly, of  Pink-footed Geese of which, during winter, North Norfolk hosts an estimated 70,000 birds, a quarter of the world's population of this species.

For Sam, there was a sadness during filming  because it  took place just a week after the death of his mother, actress Prunella Scales, to whom   he makes several affectionate references.

Movingly, he warms to the callnote of a Dunnock because it shares the first half of its scientific name, Prunella Modularis, with that of his mother.

He says there was no question of postponing filming because she had always been a great supporter of the adage that "the show must go on".

Near the end the pair pay a visit to the Church of St Margaret in Cley where one of its windows has engraved into it a portrait of a mega-rare White-crowned Sparrow that once turned up in the churchyard and tarried for a few days.

The next and last of the three episodes is at 8pm tomorrow April 28 when the Somerset Levels will provide the habitat.

Wryneck sighted with three Cuckoos in North Yorkshire town - alas, in a taxidermist's display case

Three Cuckoos and a Wryneck

                                                             

SPARE a thought for the ignominious fate of four  migrant birds that ended up - stuffed in a taxidermist's display case.

The three Cuckoos and their mate, a Wryneck, came up for auction on Wednesday at a sale conducted by Tennants of Leyland, North Yorkshire.

The hammer fell at £500 - well above the pre-sale estimate of  between £150 and £200.

The display is believed to date back to between 1880 and 1890 when shooting of birds of all species was commonplace.

The same sale included  other stuffed  birds, many of which sold at above estimate, reflecting the firm market for this aspect of ornithology which many birders probably find sad and distasteful.

A case display of Yellowhammers at their nest  realised a hammer price of £480 which was well above the £150-£250 estimate. 

Yellowhammers at their nest

American birder-author: 'Staying at Knepp felt like being dropped into an episode of Downtown Abbey.'

                                    

Lively and optimistic - the American birder's new book 

SHORTLY after publication of his book on the increasingly difficulties now  faced by many migratory birds, a pal of author American Scott Weidensaul threw down the gauntlet by putting it to him: "Why don't you write something about what's going right for birds?"

The former newspaper reporter responded to the challenge, and the result, published earlier this week, is his informative and highly entertaining The Return of The Oystercatcher.

For British, if not American readers, the title is unfortunate given that this species has always been relatively common on our shorelines. Since it never went away, it couldn't really return.

Another caveat is that the author regularly strays away from his brief, frequently making observations from which the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the long-term prospects for many of the globe's bird species has never been bleaker.

However, Weidensaul, of New Hampshire, is excellent in squeezing out positives from the gloom - namely in his accounts of the restoration, against the odds, of certain species all over the world.

He describes the efforts of dedicated conservationists to save them  in such a cheery, amusing  and conversational way that it is hard not to put the book down without feeling happy and optimistic.

For one of the chapters, the spotlight falls on his trip to the delta of the Danube River - focus of various rewilding initiatives.

But his location is the on Romanian border with Ukraine where peril beckons - not just from Russian explosives but also from the prospect of  imminent meltdown of  the degraded Saporihzhia nuclear power plant.

In advance of his expedition and aware of the concerns of his wife, Amy, Weidensaul  writes: "I made a quick online purchase - a couple weeks' supply of potassium iodide tablets which block the thyroid gland from taking up radioactive iodine in the air, water or food.

"No need to mention this to Amy, though; she was worried enough already."

For British readers, the book's chapter on the  rewilding activities at the Knepp estate in West Sussex is likely to be particular absorbing - not so much because of its account of the already well-documented breeding successes achieved with species as White Stork, Nightingale and Turtle Dove but because of the amusing way the visit is described.

Writes the American: "Staying at Knepp felt like being dropped into a Downtown Abbey episode, though with out the below stairs staff bustling all around, answering summoning bells and dressing the gentry for dinner."

He then goes on to describe his hosts, Charlie and Issy Tree, in the same way he might write about the plumage of birds.

"Charlie is a bluff man of 63 with an easy laugh, his hair a thicket of brown curls. Issy, a few years younger  is slender, her brown hair worn short and sensible."

Staying in descriptive mode, a few paragraphs later, his view of two Coots in combat is concluded thus: "While the Coots were raising hell, two Great Crested Grebes glided by  in elegant calm, paying no mind except to flare their rust cheek patches as if in polite disapproval."

This detailed and vibrant way of  writing characterises the text and somehow imbues it with integrity and honesty.

Subtitled Saving Birds to Save The Planet, The Return of The Oystercatcher is published at £20 in hardback by Picador. 

* See also previous blog.

RSPB spends an "estimated £375,000 a year" in its efforts to safeguard Britain's much persecuted Hen Harriers

                                               

                                                                  

A pair of Hen Harriers as depicted in Gould's Birds of Europe

THE RSPB spends "an estimated £375,000 a year" in striving to safeguard a breeding future for  Hen Harriers in Britain.

Frontline American birder-author Scott Weidensaul says this figure was given to him by the charity while he was researching raptor persecution for a new book

Most of the money goes on the costs of investigations, court expenses and satellite tracking tags to monitor the whereabouts of the birds.

Is it money effectively spent? Not necessarily so.

"Law enforcement has failed," says Weidensaul."Even when the RSPB and its allies obtain what  they would consider to be incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing, up to and including videos and eyewitnesses, the official police response is often seen to be sluggish or non-existent.

"Even when prosecution is pursued, the penalties are often laughably slight."

On the subject of Britain's Hen Harriers, the author notes the strange case of two male birds that hatched from the same nest in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire.

While one never flew more than 50 miles from Bowland, the other made two winter trips to Extremadura in south-western Spain (roughly 1,000 miles each way) - something only one in 10 British harriers do.

"Why?" he asks. "No one really knows." 

Since childhood, Weidensaul has had a particular love of raptors - despite once having been being knocked 15ft to the ground by an "unusually aggressive"  parent bird while shinnying up an oak tree to inspect the nest and chicks of a Great Horned Owl.

"I felt as though I'd been smacked on the back of the head with a piece of firewood," he recalls in his  book, The Return of The Oystercatcher, which is published today, April 23, by Picador.

"I fell in such a way that my head and neck lay cushioned in leaves between a couple of large rocks that might have ended my birding career before it had really started.

"I was wise enough not to tell my parents."

In the book, which will be reviewed in a forthcoming edition of The Wryneck, Weidensaul pays tribute to his friend, Ruth Tingay, of Raptor Persecution UK whom he describes as "easily one of the most tireless and ferocious advocates for raptor protection in Great Britain".

There is also a name-check for Mya Bambrick who showed him Ospreys in Dorset and mischievously - but falsely - claimed that it was criminal offence in Britain to encroach within 200 metres of one of their nests.

Presence of nesting Peregrines means no flags will fly above Yorkshire church at least until September

 

                                    

THE presence of a pair of nesting Peregrine Falcons means that no flag of St George is flying aloft the minster in Beverley, East Yorkshire today.

Because of the risk of disturbances to the birds - which are legally protected - no flags will be flying before the end of the nesting season in September.

Most residents have welcomed the arrival of the impressive raptors and enjoy watching them as they come and go with prey to feed their chicks.

A further benefit is that they deter feral pigeons whose droppings are said to cause damage to the stonework of the minster.

However, their presence has dismayed pigeon fanciers who fear that their birds, some of them valuable, could fall victim.

There have also been protests about the discarded remains of Golden Plover and other avian prey littering the lawns of the minster.