MP CALLS FOR WHITE-TAILED EAGLE TO BE REINTRODUCED TO CUMBRIA

                     

Mark Jenkinson - eager for return of iconic raptor

THE Conservative MP for Workington is backing proposals for the white-tailed eagle to be reintroduced to Cumbria after many years as a breeding absentee.

Mark Jenkinson (38) brought the species to the attention of fellow MPs during a Commons debate this week on a range of environmental issues.

Said he: "The white-tailed eagle is listed in our 25-year environment plan as a species whose reintroduction we could support as we develop our nature recovery network. 

"Cumbria is at the forefront of nature recovery - we have a local nature recovery strategy pilot and, separately, we are in a group that has submitted a bid for feasibility work on the white-tailed eagle’s reintroduction. 

"Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss how her Department might assist with that proposal?

 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Victoria Prentis, replied: "The 25-year environment plan encourages the reintroduction of species such as the white-tailed eagle. 

"I know that my hon. Friend is aware of the funding pots on offer, and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials would be very pleased to meet him and the project scheme to discuss what further action could be taken."

IMPORTANT SURVEY PROVIDES VALUABLE INSIGHT INTO BIRDLIFE OF THE UK OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

A NEW book on the birds and other wildlife of the UK Overseas Territories has just been published, largely thanks to the endeavours of a former Lincolnshire birder.

Birds of The Overseas Territories  is edited by Roger Riddington who grew up in Alford but later worked as a warden on Fair Isle and now lives in the Shetlands.

He worked on the project during interludes from his main job as editor of British Birds - a post from which will soon be stepping down.

Most of the overseas territories are small islands, or island complexes, occurring from the Caribbean to the furthest reaches of the South Atlantic via the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

In terms of global biodiversity, their importance cannot be overestimated.

Their habitats range from coral atolls through mangroves and dry forests to the ice sheets of Antarctica, and they support at least 45 species of birds currently considered to be globally threatened. 

The territories are also home to a third of all the world's breeding albatrosses, and nine of the world's 17 species of penguin.

The various chapters have been written by individual authors, and Roger has linked the contributions in such a way that there is a coherent theme.

Birds of The Overseas Territories is published by T.D. Poyser at £35.

COULD IT BE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE BEAK?

                                                          

Birds of a feather, but which is which? 

It is sometimes said that dog owners come to resemble their pets.

But what about birders? Do they come to look like the birds they watch?

This was a theory that Ron Bendall of Glamorgan decided to investigate.

He invited an artist-pal, Mr S. Hulings, to take his sketchbook along to the meeting of his local cage bird society - and this was the result.

No prizes for working out which of the society members kept budgerigars and which kept canaries.

So next time you attend a mass-twitch, perhaps take a look around you - how many different species can you detect? 

LANCEOLATED WARBLER FOUND (AND SHOT) ON THIS DAY - NOVEMBER 18 - IN 1909

Caton Haigh - killed rare bird with one shot

It was on November 18, 1909, that Lincolnshire ornithologist George Caton Haigh recorded, near Saltfleetby, what was  the first UK mainland example of lanceolated warbler.

He describes the finding thus:  "I first observed the bird in the long grass on the side of one of the marsh drains out of which it ran on to the short grass of the adjoining field. 

"I watched it for a short time as it ran about the ground like a mouse, and I noticed that it kept its tail depressed, and not erected over the back, as is usually the case with the grasshopper warbler when running over open ground. 

"At one time it flew up to a barbed-wire post up which it climbed with the facility of a treecreeper. 

"It soon flew back to the ground, and I shot it just as it reached the long grass again. 

"Unfortunately the bird was much shattered by the shot, and I had great difficulty in making a skin of it. 

"It proved to be a male, and I think adult, and was excessively fat. In appearance this bird is considerably smaller than the grasshopper warbler." 

Caton Haigh, from Grainsby, near Grimsby, is also credited with finding - again on the Lincolnshire Coast - Britain's first  Radde’s warbler (October 1,1898) and Greenish warbler (September 5, 1896).

As was the practice of the day, he shot these birds - and many others - prior to identification.

Many of the skins are stored by the Natural History museum at premises in Tring, Hertfordshire.

The eccentric life of Caton Haigh is described in the ebook, Shotgun Ornithologist: The Birdman of Grainsby Hall, available via Kindle (price £1).

https://amzn.to/3lK8hqC

INTRIGUING NEW BOOK TAKES US INTO THE LIFE OF A MUCH-LOVED BIRD OF THE BRITISH UPLANDS

                                                        

FASCINATING insights about a favourite member of the thrush family are revealed in a new book - The Ring Ouzel, A View from The North York Moors.

Although, within the UK, it is  a somewhat scarce breeding uplands species, it occurs widely on migration in all sorts of habitats, sometimes in unlikely locations such as London parks.

It is the favourite species of broadcaster and author David Lindo, The Urban Birder,  who encounters  it most years on scrubland at  his wilderness patch  near Wormwood Scrubs prison.

It also has a knack of turning up on allotments or in paddocks containing livestock.

The book's authors, Vic Fairbrother and Ken Hutchinson, have been studying the species for the past couple of decades, but they have also pored through countless historic publications to enrich their research.

 Using vivid extracts from field notebooks and profusely illustrated with photographs, as well as delightful paintings and sketches by  Jonathan Pomroy, the reader is transported to the beautiful North York Moors National Park. 

We can share in the excitement as the first ring ouzels of the year return from their winter quarters in North Africa, witness their courtship displays, the establishment of territories and the female ouzel painstakingly building her nest and laying eggs. 

This is followed by the monitoring of the hatching and fledging of chicks.

To hear the song of the ring ouzel carrying for a surprising distance across the high moorland in the early morning is one of the many delights of upland Britain. 

The authors have recorded and analysed both simple and complex songs in their study area and, following comparison with recordings from Scotland, Derbyshire and the Yorkshire Dales, have confirmed the suspected presence of local dialects.

The contraction in distribution and number of ring ouzels breeding in Britain, the work of the Ring Ouzel Study Group, the introduction of conservation measures and the potential impact of climate change are all described. 

Crucially, attention is also drawn to the first indications of the species' decline in Switzerland.

As a migrant, the ring ouzel faces additional pressures and problems on passage, and there is an important section on the challenges it faces in  in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco where it spends winter.

This milestone publication brings the ring ouzel into sharp focus for the first time.

This highly readable study book is published in softback at £21.95 by Dunbeath-based firm Whittles Publishing, and can be bought or ordered wherever books are sold.

'THEY WOULD FLING THEMSELVES INTO THE SKY ALMOST LIKE A SHUTTLECOCK'

                                                                 

Snow bunting on beach at Cleethorpes in North East Lincolnshire

Snow buntings are a great favourite with UK birders, but few get the opportunity to see them in their favoured summer habitats in  the Arctic. One who studied them closely while on a trip to Siberia in 1875 was Sheffield steel magnate and ornithologist Henry Seebohm (1832-95). Below is his commentary on the species as published in the first volume of his fascinating book, The Birds of Siberia.

At Mezen we were much interested in watching a large flock of snow buntings. 

Their favourite resort was the steep bank of the river where they found abundance of food in the manure which was thrown away. 

In a country where there is plenty of grass in summer and very little corn is cultivated and where the cattle have to be stall-fed for seven or eight months out of the twelve, manure apparently is of little value, and hundreds of cartloads are annually deposited on the steep banks of the river where it is washed away by the floods caused by the sudden melting of the snow in May. 

The snow buntings were also frequently seen round the hole in the ice on the river where the inhabitants of Mezen obtained their supply of water. 

In both places, the boys of the village had set white horsehair snares and seemed to be very successful in their sport. 

At this time of the year (March), these birds are fat and are excellent eating. 

We were told that, in a fortnight, they would be here in much greater numbers, and would be sold for a rouble the hundred or even less. 

None of the birds we got were in full summer plumage, yet they looked extremely handsome as they ran along the snow like a wagtail or a dotterel or fluttered from place to place with a butterfly-like kind of flight. 

We occasionally saw them hop, but they generally preferred to run. 

The most interesting fact which we observed was that the snow bunting occasionally perches in trees. 

We saw two in the forest, one of which perched in a spruce fir.

When we later watched them  in the streets of Ust-Zylma, we were told that they arrived April 1.

In spite of its abundance, we could not help looking upon it with all the interest attaching to a rare bird. 

The brilliant contrast of the black and white on the plumage of these birds, then rapidly assuming their summer dress, was especially beautiful during flight. 

The flight itself is peculiar, somewhat like that of a butterfly, as if it altered its mind every few seconds as to which direction it would take.

It can scarcely be called an undulating flight. 

The bird certainly does rest its wings every few seconds, but either they are expanded when at rest, or they are rested for so short a time that the plane of flight is not sufficiently altered to warrant its being called undulatory. 

The snow buntings in Ust-Zylma were principally in flocks, but, now and then, we saw a couple of birds together which seemed to have paired, and occasionally, when the sun was hotter than usual, a solitary specimen might be seen perched upon a rail attempting to sing, but we never heard them sing on the wing. 

Unfortunately, we did not get far enough north to meet with these birds at their breeding stations.

In 1874, when the Norwegian ornithologist, Robert Collett, and I were in Norway, we found the snow bunting breeding on the island of Vadso in the Varanger Fjord. 

We were too late for eggs, as this bird is a very early breeder, and the young were already in the nest by the middle of June.

However, we had many opportunities of watching the male birds. 

They would fling themselves up into the air almost like a shuttlecock, singing all the time a low and melodious warble, not unlike that of a shorelark or perhaps still more like that of the Lapland bunting, and they would immediately descend in a spiral curve with wing and tails expanded, and finish their song on a rock. 

Although we only once or twice heard the snow buntings attempting to sing in Ust-Zylma, they were by no means silent birds and were continually calling to each other. 

The call note is a zh, not unlike that of the brambling or greenfinch. 

The alarm-note is a loud tweek.

As they fly together in flocks they merely twitter to each other, not unlike purple sandpipers on the seashore.

                                           

Henry Seebohm - businessman and birder