Former England and Arsenal footballer: 'I always take my binoculars because I love watching the birds'

                                                                

Probably syndicated to many local newspapers such as the Grimsby Telegraph (above), here is Abi Jackson's interview with  the Yorkshire-born former footballer

FORMER Arsenal and England goalkeeper David Seaman has revealed that he has on his way to becoming "a proper twitcher".

In a newspaper article about his passion for angling, he says he has also become hooked on observing birds and other wildlife.

He is quoted thus: "I always take my binoculars because I love looking at all the different aspects of wildlife, watching the birds."

He has now sufficiently clued up that he can identify some species by their call or song - "like a proper twitcher". 

Rotherham-born David (59) enjoyed a  footballing career lasting from 1981 to 2004. He won numerous honours with Arsenal and won 75 caps for England, representing his country in the team that reached the quarter-final of the 2002 World Cup held in Brazil.

However, he retired two years later because of a recurring shoulder injury and he now coaches - when he is not fishing or watching birds.

The Wryneck says: Welcome to the birding community, David! It is good that someone with an illustrious sporting heritage is now, in his own words, a 'proper twitcher'. Wherever he chooses to watch and listen to birds, here’s hoping the ex-Gunner gets plenty of encouragement - and gives plenty in return. In the meantime, an organisation such as the RSPB or his county wildlife trust (or both) should swoop. The former star ‘keeper would doubtless prove a great ambassador and perhaps prompt many others, including notables from the world of sport, to join him on his birding journey. 

 

I get knocked down, but I get up again - you're never going to keep me down!

                                                 

Is Garry's delicate study the only image of the white-throated needletail that thrilled birder on Harris ten yeas ago? And does anyone knows what happened to its corpse after its fatal collision with a wind turbine?

WORDS from the pop song, Tubthumping, by Chumbawamba could almost provide the backdrop for the life and times of  one of the UK's highest-profile  twitchers.

In his highly readable first book, Twitching by Numbers, Garry Bagnell  reveals that, in a dash to see rare birds, he has twice badly bloodied his face by stumbling and hitting his head on his 'scope tripod. 

One of these incidents came in 2011 when he was sprinting to see an Isabelline wheatear that had been spotted on Crowlink Down in Sussex, not far from his home.

"I tripped on a rabbit hole and fell flat on my face," he recalls. "My tripod landed on my face which was covered in blood.

"My front teeth cut through my lips and the bleeding covered my face and T-shirt - I apologise for looking so scary!" 

                                           

Garry's first book - lively and comprehensive insight into the world of twitching

In fact, the author has has got into no end of scrapes, some amusing, some less, so during his 25 years travelling by road, sea and air to see rare vagrants all over the UK.

In one 12-year period, he wrote off no fewer than five cars. On another occasion, in 2017, he was so preoccupied with photographing a red-winged blackbird that he did not realise he had mislaid his car keys on North Ronaldsay in The Orkneys.

In 2003, relatively early in his twitching career, he decided to take a day off from work, sick, in order to catch up with an American robin in Cornwall - only to be dobbed in to his employer by someone, possibly another twitcher, who saw him.

Returning to work, he was summoned to the office of his line manager who told him: "I've discussed the matter with Human Resources, and, on this occasion, I will be issuing you with a verbal warning.

"Next time it will be a written warning."

The author - highly entertaining as well as authoritative

Garry was understandably not best pleased by the snitch. "What do birders get out of grassing other birders up?"he demands.

"Twitching is best performed as a group activity - you should be able to trust your friends.

"All it takes is for one mischievous individual to hear gossip on the grapevine and you could end up jobless." 

When a BBC documentary was made about him and other twitchers, he was embarrassed to find that he had been filmed committing a double motoring breach - not wearing a seatbelt and using his phone at the wheel.

Garry's  book is a  fast-paced  and  amusing romp through the past quarter century of his life - the journeys he has taken, the places where has stayed, the rare birds he has seen (and those he has missed) and the pals he has made along the way.

The megas - some of them  exquisitely illustrated by his own hand - include White's thrush, slender-billed gull, snowy egret, lesser sand plover, savannah sparrow, lesser-crested tern, Canada warbler, Asian brown flycatcher, little blue heron, varied thrush and blue-cheeked bee-eater.

Interspersed in all this action are excerpts from his working career as a company accountant/ finance analyst, his support for Arsenal FC, his experiences with sometimes dodgy secondhand cars his brushes with ill-health (including cancer) and his many early-life romantic flings.

But he is clearly dedicated, above all, to his supremely understanding and patient wife, Kim, and to his family and friends. 

The book is incredibly detailed, particularly about the  frequently complicated logistics involved in travelling to twitch rare birds, but also about the minutiae of daily life, even down to the size of Kim's shoes (she takes a five!)

As such, it is a testament to the extraordinary thoroughness of his note-taking with hints of a personality that sometimes borders on the obsessive.

Remarkable, even before he became a dedicated twitcher, Sussex-based Garry (55) already had plenty of other interests to occupy his hours of leisure - DJ-ing, spotting rare jet aircraft and playing both darts and chess, the latter to county standard.

Among the most recent setbacks was one entirely that was entirely unexpected.

Having spent hours completing the manuscript, illustrating it, then self-publishing it via Amazon, he sent a review copy to a foremost UK birding magazine.

Understandably, he expected a fair and preferably favourable review - but, as it turned out, his confidence was entirely misplaced.

Not only did the reviewer - a fellow-twitcher - deliberately withhold the name of the title, but she condemned the book.

Seizing on just a couple of paragraphs, she sought to shame the author as mysogynistic and homophobic.

What she had perhaps failed to appreciate was that Garry grew up during the bawdy era of Page 3 Girls in The Sun newspaper, lads' magazines such as Loaded, Club 18-30 holidays and Benny Hill comedy on TV. 

It is true that one or two sections in the book reflect the happy-go-lucky frivolity  of that time, but hardly sufficient for the book to be condemned in its entirety.

There was worse to follow. The reviewer, who has grown up in a different cultural climate, then took to Twitter to reiterate her comments - sparking a barrage of abuse towards Garry (he was even accused of being "predatory") from many who had not even read the book, let alone met him.

The author got knocked down - but he  got up again.

He deleted the passages that had caused offence and re-launched his book which, in the wake of more favourable reviews, has, deservedly, been a brisk seller ever since.

But back to the birds. One of the biggest dilemmas faced by a twitcher comes when two mega-rare birds turn up simultaneously at locations hundreds of miles apart.

In such cases, Garry's gambit is to research historical records to see how long each species tend to tarry before moving on - the shorter stayer, naturally, is the one he generally chooses to twitch first.

His experience has also taught him that an American vagrant will generally stay around while building up its fat reserves after having flown across the Atlantic.

By contrast, an Asian rarity which has most likely built up its reserves through numerous stops en route to Britain may be gone the next day.

Garry has taken photographs of some of the birds he has seen, but he does not say much about this side of the hobby except to offer a word of caution.

In 1999, while on a twitch to his first Baillon's crake at Grove Ferry, near Canterbury in Kent, he made it his priority to take  moving pictures of the bird on his camcorder.

But, back home, zooming in on the playback reduced the quality of the images which became increasingly pixellated.

He writes "I felt a bit cheated as I should have studied it through my bins."

Twitchers are sometimes accused of being more interested in securing the tick than in observing the bird.

This is certainly not the case with Garry.

Of his ovenbird, seen in Scilly in 2012, he writes: "It was walking over birders' feet to feed, but the wind was strong and it got blown over a few times."

Because it was clearly in poor condition, the bird was, the next day, taken into care but it died.

It is this particular bird whose illustration graces  the cover of Twitching by Numbers.

"Watching it for six hours pecking at people's feet was so special," writes the author. "I couldn't stop the tears when the news of its death came through."

The author was equally enchanted by the white-throated needletail that was detected in the sky above the island of  Harris in the Outer Hebrides in June 2013.

Of this bird (discovered, incidentally by Adam Gretton and Mark Cocker who has written many books, including one about twitchers), he enthuses: "Watching the fastest bird in the world whooshing inches over my head felt like the defining moment of my twitching career.

"If Britain ever gets another twitchable one, make sure you see it as it really is the ultimate twitch."

Sad to relate, the fate of the needletail was no happier than that of the ovenbird. It was killed after colliding at speed with the tower of a wind turbine.

Inevitably, there are sometimes tensions between twitchers, particularly for instance if there is a scramble for seats on a small chartered aircraft.

On rare occasions, fights have even broke out

Writes Garry: "Sometimes the competition to see a bird is more import than friendships.

"Some say birders will only stop at murder to see a rare bird."

Mostly, Garry has greatly enjoyed his encounters with fellow-twitchers - including Lee Evans, the self-styled chief of the tribe, who receives several namechecks in the book.

Where he knows their identities, the author makes a point of giving credit to  the individuals who have found the rarities. Indeed, the last sentence of his book reads: "Don't forget to thank the real stars of the hobby, the finders."

Back in 1999 in Scilly, there was, however, one incident which disappointed him - a fellow-birder who refused to share his scope with others who had been unable to get twitchable views of a skulking White's thrush.

"I had never really encountered this selfish behaviour before," writes Garry.

There are reckoned to be some 33,000 serious twitchers in Britain, but not many can match the author's list of British sightings which, by the end of the book, has extended to no fewer than 553 species - many of seen through a secondhand pair of Leica 10x42 binoculars and a Kowa TSN823 'scope.

Inevitably, with so many species now, the intensity of Garry's twitching has reduced since his book was published. 

Indeed, there are signs, that his growing interest in butterflies may soon feature almost as high as his passion for birds.

However, he still very much in the game and is already gathering material for a follow-up book, though possibly not due to be published for another five years.

In the meantime, catch up with Twitching By Numbers which  is available in large format paperback, price £18.95, from  Amazon!

Such a large eye for such a small bird - the Asian brown flycatcher that arrived on the North Yorkshire Coast in October, 2007

TV broadcaster: 'My honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife, people and environment'

                                             

Chris Packham - spelling out message  loud and clear

Just days after learning that his High Court defamation action against two (out of three) individuals had succeeded, TV naturalist Chris Packham - host of BBC TV's Springwatch - decided to provide a recap for the benefit of his many fans, some of whom may not have been up to speed. Yesterday, he took to Twitter to broadcast a personal message, complete with subtitles for the benefit of any of his followers who might be hard of hearing. He repeated  both the main allegations made against him and his refutations. Before doing so, he took further advice from his solicitors. Here is the transcript of his broadcast. 

Every day many thousands of innocent people are victims of online abuse and hate crimes. This can be racially, religiously or politically motivated. It can be generated in regard to gender politics, environmental beliefs, body shaming.

This vile part of modern life ruins lives, livelihoods, reputations, it disrupts young peoples educations, causes incalculable mental health problems and tragically causes people to take their own lives.

As it stands the criminal law is simply not there to protect us from such hate - something that must change. The current Government's Online Safety Bill is plodding along. In the meantime, a tiny minority of victims are able to take civil action.

I have won my defamation case and been awarded costs and substantial damages.

Who are the defendants?

Dominic Wightman is the editor of Country Squire Magazine. His friend and business associate is a former director of the Countryside Alliance. He claims to be or have been variously an expert on Islamic extremism and terrorism, a gold dealer, the owner of a bank, to have been working for right-wing think tanks and a search engine optimisation expert.

Nigel Bean has a keen interest in fox hunting, having ridden to hounds for thirty five years. He writes the pro hunting The Aldenham blog.

Paul Read is the proof reader for some of the defamatory articles for Country Squire Magazine and retweeted the links to them. The court dismissed my claims against him.

At the outset of this litigation the Country Squire website carried the British Association for Shooting and Conservation logo and still carries the logo of Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, The Scottish Gamekeepers Association and Baileys – the Hunting Directory.

Mr Wightman and Mr Bean are representatives of the field sports fraternity.

In the offending articles and tweets, they accused me of defrauding the public to raise money to rescue tigers from circuses, defrauding the public by promoting a crowd-funder during the COVID epidemic, lying about the burning of peat during COP26, writing a death threat letter to myself, and elsewhere of bullying, sexual misconduct and rape. They also accused me of faking an arson attack at my home and repeatedly called upon the BBC to sack me.

In a full and frank vindication of my innocence, the court has found that 'Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth'.

Mr Wightman and Mr Bean had argued that publication of the allegations was in the public interest. This defence failed 'by some margin'. The Court has said “rather than approaching the task with an investigative mind, these Defendants targeted Mr Packham as a person against whom they had an agenda.”

The articles published by Mr Wightman and Mr Bean 'gave way… to increasingly hyperbolic and vitriolic smearing of Mr Packham, with further unsubstantiated allegations'. Several articles and tweets made offensive references to my autism.

The Court has accepted that this campaign 'would have misled and agitated vocal and sometimes violent groups', who “posted threatening and vile material about Mr Packham and his family online'.

Most egregiously, all three defendants had advanced an allegation that I had forged a death threat letter to myself, an allegation that they managed to disseminate to the mainstream media. It was covered twice in The Times and widely elsewhere.

The Court has held that I did not write the death threat letter, concluding that 'even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two'. The handwriting experts employed by the defendants were discredited and the accusation was withdrawn during the trial by their counsel.

However, the defendants stated under oath that they still believed I wrote it. Indeed when asked what they would do should they lose the case they said, and I am paraphrasing, that they would ‘carry on’.

I would like to thank my excellent legal team, barristers Jonathan Price and Claire Overman and Carol Day and Tessa Gregory and their team from Leigh Day. They have been steadfast throughout despite often appallingly offensive abuse from the defendants. Thank you.

I would also like to thank Dr Ruth Tingay for setting up a Crowdfunder to help cover the costs of this long and expensive litigation.

And lastly, my followers. Thank you for your unswerving support and belief in my honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife, people and the environment.

The Wryneck says: Having won his case, Chris Packham should have been wise (and gracious) enough to let the matter rest. With victory secured, could he not find it in his heart to forgive? Is the peace pipe not worth smoking? With Sunday's ill-judged and unnecessary Twitter broadcast, the BBC's star wildlife presenter  has re-stoked the feud, in effect goading his opponents into a response. What is more, his 'crusade' comes across as a tad preachy and self-righteous. It is surely time to bury the hatchet. As is truly said, sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

The crossbills and capercaillies were playing hard to get - but Loch Garten's ospreys never let you down

Show me the way to Insh Marshes - the road as seen from the front of the Duke of Gordon hotel 

This spring saw the inaugural birding holiday - to Kingussie in the Cairngorms - of the Lincolnshire Bird Club (with support from the RSPB's Grimsby and Lincoln groups). Jim Wright reports.

WHAT happens if you gather together 31 frontline birders, equip them with high-quality optical equipment, then locate them in prime habitat in the Scottish Highlands?

Between April 28 and May 2 - the period of the visit - what fantastic species are they absolutely certain to see? And in what quantities?

Here is the result - and, be warned, it does not make for pretty reading.

Crossbill: 0

Ptarmigan: 0

Capercaillie: 0

Golden eagle: 0

White-tailed eagle: 0

Black-throated diver: 0

Red-throated diver: 0

Dotterel: 0

Chaffinch: 7,497,542-plus!

Something not quite right here. What could it have been? 

a) Poor bird detection skills?

b) Birds present - but laughing at us  from the treetops? 

c) Unfortunate  timing - were we a week, maybe a fortnight, too early? 

                              

Rare and very shy birds - how true!

Some of Scotland's celebrity species had definitely gone awol, but, as the old birding saying goes, never have 'target' birds - the quest is more important than the discovery.

What is more, some very good birds were, indeed, seen, including  (albeit briefly), for a few of our party that most delightful of north-of-the-border species, the crested tit.

Credit it, too, goes to the ospreys which were nesting, true to half-a-century's worth of  tradition,  at our first excursion destination, RSPB Abernethy/Loch Garten.                                       

The ospreys at Loch Garten never fail to deliver

They were in  very good form, not least when they took to their air to see off the unwelcome attentions of a marauding carrion crow

                                   

Ever-reliable, an osprey surveys the scenery

Nearby, three tree pipits put in an unexpected appearance, while goldeneye and common sandpiper were conspicuous at nearby Loch Mallachie.

This handsome drake goldeneye was spotted on Loch Mallachie

Atop Cairngorm, the ptarmigan, dotterel and eagles may have proved elusive, but snow buntings,  in breeding plumage, put on a spectacular show    

Lower down, near where the funicular railways starts its upward journey,  two ring ouzels - a male and a female - showed well.

The next morning - one filled with wind, low cloud and drizzle - no divers were to be seen on Lochindorb, but the surrounding moorland was full of red grouse, wheatears and meadow pipits.

                                          

What's Terry Whalin pointing to at Lochindorb? It's a red grouse

Meanwhile, both in Grangetown-on-Spey and  in Aviemore, the trees and shrubs were alive with singing willow warblers and blackcaps.

In the fields all around, oystercatchers, curlews, grey lag geese, thrushes and rabbits were aplenty, plus the occasional hare and roe deer.

Base for the holiday - laid on for LBC by Goole-based Cairngorm Travel - was the excellent Duke Of Gordon hotel whose friendly staff provided hospitality in the best Scottish traditions, not least with their succession of sumptuous breakfasts and evening meals.

On one night we were even led in by a piper - surely  a first for a birding holiday?

                                            

Kingussie - home to excellent birding habitat

There are surely few better places in the Highlands than the Duke as a centre for all-round wildlife-watching.

Just over two miles away from the hotel lies another wildlife reserve, RSPB Insh Marshes, famous in winter for its population of duck, waders and whooper swans  and, later in summer, for its nesting sandpipers, flycatchers, redstarts and wood warblers.

                                            

One of the hides at Insh Marshes

Within three minutes' walk from the hotel, two pairs of  dippers provided enchanting close-up views for members of our party.

Just another couple of minutes' walk away, a pair of goosander were swimming on the Spey while twittering sand martins were flitting hither and thither from their 40- hole colony in a sandbank.

                                           

A sandbank along the Spey was home to a colony of sand martins

And what was that silhouette of a sleek mammal that scampered past? Was it just a stoat - or could it have been a pine martin or an  otter? 

What of the woodlands up the slope immediately behind the hotel? 

Magnificent habitat where easily to be found were  great spotted woodpeckers, mistle thrushes, treecreepers, siskins and more, most notably cavorting red squirrels.

                                            

Treecreeper - a species frequently to be seen in the  woods and forests

To provide interest, we had two free prize draws - one on the outward journey from Lincolnshire, one on the return.

Congratulations to Sandra Harlow, who won a copy of The Green Woodpecker (Pelagic Publishing) by Gerard Gorman and to Sam Mather who won a copy of the 3rd Edition, Collins Bird Guide (Harper Collins).

                                                  

Book winner - Sam Mather with his friend, Elysha McBride 

Finally, a word for Paul, Cairngorm Travel's entertaining and very obliging coach driver.

He couldn't find us any eagles, but that was not for want of trying.

He took us to all the right habitats including some remote spots where, understandably,  a coach had probably never previously been seen!    

All in all, as one of our party put it, "a very enjoyable experience". 

The Duke of Gordon Hotel as seen from the side

Happy to be birding in the Cairngorms

Robins were often to be seen pecking about near the entrance to the hotel

Spot the dipper - it's on the branch - a species frequently seen where the waters were shallow and fast-moving

Where are we going next? Group members prepare to  board the coach for the next excursion 

Not as common as rabbits, but hares were often to be seen

Great tits and coal tits were common everywhere. Less so crested tits with only a few sightings

A pre-meal piper turns on the style

Siskins and goldfinches were everywhere to be seen 

On the way into the viewing centre at RSPB Abernethy/ Loch Garten

Congratulations to Sandra Harlow - winner of the other book. She is pictured with husband Stuart and sister Christine 

Last but not least, Paul - our entertaining and ever-obliging coach driver

Really? Newspaper columnist names and shames Mediterranean gull as 'lethal killer' of lapwing chicks

Is Mediterranean gull really so much of a threat? (Photo: Martin Olsson via Wikimedia Commons)

A  FARMER who writes a column for The Daily Telegraph has claimed that Britain's gull population "has reached damaging levels".

In a contribution published earlier this week, Jamie Blackett writes: "We need to talk about gulls.

"Particularly gulls of the lesser black-backed and herring varieties are becoming a problem.

"Complaints to councils have doubled in recent years - usually for noise guano-spattered pavements and damage to buildings.

"Soon the papers will be full of summer stories of toddlers having ice creams snatched and of pet dachshunds being attacked."

However, Mr Blackett goes on to adopt a different tack from most of those who have a downer on gulls, stating that these birds now pose "a huge threat to more vulnerable British birdlife".

In particularly, he blames the Mediterranean gull - still an uncommon species in Britain - as "one of the most lethal killers of  lapwing chicks", particularly in the South-east.

His source for such a claim?

The columnist does not name any organisation or individual - but attributes his statement information provided by "conservationists from the North Pennine Moors to the North Kent Marshes.

He continues; "These gulls are not by any stretch of the imagination rare, while curlews and other waders may be facing extinction".

Mr Blackett goes on to take a pop at "Chris Packham-backed Wild Justice activists", saying it was their pressure that, in 2019, ended the "general licence to cull gulls and some other birds".

Consent to cull now requires 'special licences' by application to Natural England. But by the time the process has been followed, "the damage has been done".

He concludes: "We need to have  serious conversation, not just about gulls, but about our wildlife being destroyed by a predator imbalance that the Government has made much worse." 

TV broadcaster Chris Packham awarded £90,000 after bringing defamation case in High Court

   

Chris Packham - wrongly accused

TV NATURALIST  Chris Packham has been awarded £90,000 after pursuing what proved to be a (mostly) successful defamation case in the High Court.

The broadcaster was suing three individuals - Dominic Wightman, Nigel Bean and Paul Read - over a series of reports published in Country Squire Magazine, an online publication set up in 2016, and in social media, notably Twitter.

He maintained the material - particularly allegations of fraud and dishonesty - was untrue, hurtful and potentially harmful to his reputation.

Following a 10-day hearing earlier this month, the judge, the Hon Justice Saini, issued his 58-page judgement earlier today.

It concludes: "Mr Packham’s defamation claims against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean succeed.

"Mr Packham did not commit any acts of fraud or dishonesty.

"I will enter judgment for damages against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean in the sum of £90,000."

However, Mr Packham's case against Mr Read was unsuccessful after it emerged that the latter was only a proof reader of the reports, which he checked for spelling and grammar errors, not an instigator of the content. 

The broadcaster will have to pay at least part of the legal cost of Mr Read who is a retired computer programmer.

Of Mr Wightman, who is Editor of Country Squire Magazine, the Judge says: "I found him to be an honest witness in the sense that he sincerely believed in the truth of the evidence he gave.

"He is an articulate and intelligent person. 

"That said, I approach his evidence with a significant qualification, and with some caution. 

"That is because. both in his written and in his oral evidence, he gave me the impression of a person who had lost all objectivity when it came to Mr Packham. 

"That meant he was unable to see any act of Mr Packham as being other than underhand or dishonest. 

"Most striking is that he was willing to make and pursue allegations which I consider had no factual basis.

"Mr Wightman’s negative views of Mr Packham were, I am sure, reflective of what I consider was his them-and-us attitude, with the traditional countryside on one side (those he described as hunters, farmers and landowners), and what he and Mr Bean  perceived as those who were “left” leaning, including the BBC and animal rights activists, on the other side. 

"In Mr Wightman’s worldview, Mr Packham falls within this second camp as a person described by him as being on the “public teat”, benefitting from BBC licence fee money. 

"Parts of his articles show an ever increasing level of rage towards Mr Packham, including offensive references to his neurodiversity as a claimed excuse used by Mr Packham."

The Judge describes Mr Bean as "an enthusiastic horse rider" who regularly rode to hounds until the Hunting Act 2004. 

"Mr Bean accepted the description given of him by Mr Wightman as a 'truffle pig investigator' for Country Squire Magazine. 

"In his evidence, he explained he had first-hand experience of the tactics of anti-hunt saboteurs and described their motives and purpose as being to 'harass legal activities in the countryside'.

"Mr Bean has written extensively about the methods, activities and what he calls the 'sheer dishonesty' of the hunt saboteurs and animal rights extremists on his blog, The Aldenham. 

"He associates Mr Packham with such persons. 

"I found Mr Bean to be an honest witness in the sense that he sincerely believed that he had uncovered wrongdoing by Mr Packham and sincerely believes in the right of those who participate in traditional countryside activities and pastimes to do so. 

"However, as with Mr Wightman, Mr Bean had lost objectivity and he had an 'agenda' against Mr Packham. 

"He saw Mr Packham as being part of a 'left leaning' part of society whose views he opposed. 

"Mr Bean was unwilling to accept that any of Mr Packham’s actions could be explicable as innocent as opposed to fraudulent."

The Judge found Mr Packham and entirely reliable witness, but said there was "no proper evidential basis" for inferring tweets and retweets caused any harm to his reputation, let alone any harm that could properly be characterised as 'serious'. 

The Judge also noted that one article gratuitously mocked Mr Packham’s manner of speaking (“intwepid hewo”), while others descended into "sinister threats and an extraordinary level of vitriol", including offensive references both to Mr Packham’s neurodiversity and to abuse of his solicitors, Leigh Day. 

He said: "These were not the product of any acts of responsible journalism."

The Judge acknowledged that the articles may have led to others posting "threatening and vile material" about Mr Packham and his family online, but this did not incline him to award "aggravated damages", especially as Mr Wightman "has also been the victim of inappropriate and offensive communications (including highly distressing trolling) from those who oppose his views on countryside issues". 

The Judge said that libel damages have a threefold purpose as follows:

(1) to compensate for distress and hurt feelings; 

(2) to compensate for actual injury to reputation which has been proved or might reasonably be inferred; 

(3) to serve as an outward and visible sign of vindication.  

Will the court case - and the judgement - draw a line under the matter?

That remains to be seen.

Healthy prices achieved at auction for bird paintings by former director of British Antarctic Survey

                            

Healthy prices were achieved at auction today for two paintings by Richard Maitland Laws (1926-2014), former director of the British Antarctic Survey and an expert on pelagic birds. At the sale conducted by John Taylors of Louth in Lincolnshire, the hammer came down at £200 on his study (above) of a wandering albatross and at £60 on the cattle egrets.                                                         

 

Days when shorebirds were shot recalled in painting by Pauline Walker which is up for auction in Lincoln

                                                          

The sad days when shorebirds were often shot are recalled in the painting above by late 19th Century artist Pauline Walker which is due to go under the hammer at a sale of fine art to be held in Lincoln on Wednesday May 24. According to auctioneers Golding Young, the pre-sale estimate for Lot 1035 is between £80-120. When a similar still life study (below) by the same artist, was auctioned in a Surrey saleroom in June 2018, the price achieved (including buyer fees) was £57 against a pre-sale estimate of £30-50. 

                                              

Bad news for Grimsby's pigeons as Barclays Bank applies to council to install perilous anti-roost bird netting

 

War on pigeons - there are already anti-perching spikes on the bank's window ledges

BARCLAYS Bank is keen to install anti-pigeon netting on its property in Grimsby's Top Town. 

The bank wants to banish the street pigeons that roost to the rear of its premises on Victoria Street.

Says Milly Warner, of its agents, Stride Tregown Ltd: "The branch has been subject to an infestation of feral pigeons, roosting above the site and being active at the rear escape route.

"This is leading to a build-up of fouling on the roosting areas. 

"Deterring birds from roosting on the building and clearing and disinfecting the area will serve to preserve the building fabric as well as the surrounding hard landscaping." 

She continues: "Public health benefits will also result from the removal of bird fouling from the site.

"Build-up of bird waste can cause parasites and bacteria to migrate into the building which can cause internal damage that leads to water ingress. 

"Many Listed buildings suffer significant damage to the historic fabric of the structure due to water ingress."

Ms Warner goes on: "The proposed bird netting is of very limited visual impact on the building due the discreet location of its installation to the rear of the building. 

"The method of installation is as low impact as can be whilst remaining effective. 

"Effective and professional management of vermin will ensure the longevity of the fabric of the listed building for years to come."

The proposal is under consideration by North East Lincolnshire Council.

However, not everyone supports the initiative.

This is partly because birds frequently get caught in netting, often resulting in death from exhaustion and starvation in their struggle to escape.

The remains of a perished bird in netting installed at the side of the Specsavers shop which is next door to Barclays  in Grimsby

The Wryneck says:  To use terms such as 'vermin' and 'infestation' is to demonise the pigeons. They may not be as beautiful as swans, nor sing like nightingales, but these birds add life and personality to town centres. If Barclays is concerned about waste, all it has to do is get out a bucket and sponge. The bank's proposal is mean-spirited and, if approved by the council, may have potentially cruel consequences. It should be withdrawn forthwith.  

Rarely-seen bird paintings by former British Antarctic Survey director Dick Laws set to go under the hammer

 

What an insult! Dick Laws' wandering albatross was first catalogued as a "seagull" 

TWO rarely-seen works by eminent artist/scientist/explorer Dick Laws are up for sale on May 23 at auction in a Lincolnshire market town.

One, an acrylic on board,  depicts a wandering albatross, while the other is a delicate watercolour of cattle egrets.

Northumberland-born Richard Maitland Laws (1926-2014) was an authority on elephants and on sea mammals, publishing numerous scientific reports, but he was also an expert on the pelagic birds of the South Atlantic Ocean. 

It was while working as director of British Antarctic Survey that he tipped off the British Government of the imminent invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982 after detecting unlawful activities by the Argentines.

Later in an  illustrious career which saw him awarded the CBE, he served as Master at St Edmund's College, Cambridge University.

Next week's sale is being conducted online and in its saleroom by long- established auction house John Taylors of Louth.

At first, the firm  inadvertently  catalogued the albatross (Lot 458 ) as "a seagull on the sea" and the egrets (Lot 456) as "seabirds" until a keen-eyed birder suggested that corrections might be in order.

Originals by Laws seldom come up for sale, one of the most recent being at Bonhams in London in February 2019 when the hammer came down at £500 on his watercolour-and-pencil study of a squid which he had caught by hand.

More details of the sale at:

https://www.johntaylors.com/auction-rooms/ 

                                                             

Egrets survey the surrounding scenery 

Bygone birding: 'A horrible thing to think of - a world without birds!'

 

Robert Shufeldt - extinctions inevitable

Back in 1912, no one spoke of a biodiversity crisis, nor of global warming. The agro-chemical industry was in its infancy, and the human population was significantly lower than it is today. But, for different reasons, Mother Nature was on the run. Below is an extract from The Extermination of America's Bird Fauna, by Robert Shufeldft (1850-1934), a leading ornithologist of the day.

NO one noted any decrease in the birds of the United States and her territorial possessions during colonial times, when wild turkeys were shot all over New England.

They were found in millions, too, all over the rest of the country. 

One writer went so far as to state that, in Florida, these birds caused the Earth to tremble when they all gobbled together in the forest at the dawn of day!

Audubon describes the netting of quails in the western and southern States during his time (1832) when three or four men on horseback would capture and kill these birds to the extent of "many hundreds in the course of a day". 

This practice - to say nothing of what traps and the gunners were doing - was going on everywhere. 

Think of three men in New Jersey netting 600 quails in one day, killing them as captured, and sending the lot to market where they fetched a quarter of a dollar a pair! Three men only! 

No issuance of a note of warning of future extermination was then thought of, though these 'sportsmen' were often considerate enough to allow one pair its freedom out of every bunch captured in that "the breed might be continued".

Again, in Audubon’s earlier days (1813) he saw flocks, miles long, of the passenger pigeon, numbering hundreds of millions. 

Millions upon millions of these birds were slaughtered in this country every year; millions of them were allowed to rot upon the ground after having been shot or knocked down.

Yet Audubon wrote: "Persons unacquainted with these birds might naturally conclude that such dreadful havoc would soon put an end to the species". 

"But I have satisfied myself, by long observation, that nothing but the gradual diminution of our forests can accomplish their decrease, as they  not infrequently quadruple their numbers yearly, and always at least double it.” 

In this prediction the 'great bird-man' was again mistaken for those untold billions of passenger pigeons are now all extinct.

We have still enormous stretches of primeval forests left, but not a single pigeon in them. 

Already, 1,000 dollars has been offered for a single nest with eggs, and a good skin will soon be worth as much. 

In 1872, in Connecticut, I saw flocks of these pigeons that obscured the sun as they passed. 

During the day I shot 36 of them and stopped.

Others shot hundreds, and the firing on the hills north of Stamford was continuous for three days. 

Barrels upon barrels of the birds were slaughtered.

In 1864, I was in southern Florida and on the Bahama Banks for over a year. 

In those times, the various kinds of waders, pelicans and seafowl of many species were to been seen in millions. 

I have seen gulls, terns, cormorants, men-o’-warbirds and the like, arise from their eggs on the breeding grounds in such numbers as to darken the sun for hours like a total eclipse until they settled down again. 

Some of my friends have been in the Bahamas and Florida recently (1912), and they were they astounded at the vast number of roseate spoonbills and flamingoes they saw.

During the latter part of the 1870s, I travelled nearly all day along the South Platte River in an express train.

Canada geese literally covered the river and the rolling country on both sides of it as far as one could see, for hours at a time, as we passed on.

As darkness approached, their numbers were undiminished. 

It was an easy matter to shoot a hundred or more in a forenoon. 

Has this country anywhere anything of the kind to show now?

In 1867, there used to be a swamp at Stamford, Connecticut, near the steamboat-landing; it covered some ten acres. 

One evening I saw the barn swallows go to roost there.

They actually crushed the rushes down in many places, and still the air was filled with thousand of the birds as darkness came on. 

How many barn swallows does one see around Stamford in a season in these days? A hundred pairs? I think not! 

In Mexico, in 1859, I saw on the Coatzacoalcos River a flock of many thousands of scarlet ibis.

It was a never-to-be forgotten sight as they all came down together and covered several acres of a mud flat on the shores of the river.

Again, I have seen Long Island Sound in the winter time, 40 miles from New York City, actually covered with a dozen species of sea ducks - flocks of thousands, of each kind.

One could hear the birds for miles. 

Sometimes as many as four or five swivel-gun sloops were at work among them, killing from 50 to 200 at a shot, and keeping this up all day and every day, for the markets or often only for 'sport'.

In the winter of 1865, I once saw the various species of gulls and terns so numerous in New York harbour, that more than 50 boats of the 'feather-collectors' were out shooting them. 

One man passed near the quarter of the gunboat I was on board of, as I stood on deck, and I calculated he had at least two or three hundred gulls in his boat.

He was using a single-barrelled muzzle-loading gun, and was pulling ashore for more ammunition.

In the winter, it is truly pitiful to see the little flocks of gulls off  The Battery  nowadays. 

Sometimes, there really may be as many as ten in a flock and four in another - the two being a little over half a mile apart! 

This is the history of gulls and terns in New York harbour for less than half a century.

Mark you, in another half century, a gull flying over those waters will be an extraordinary sight indeed, and worthy of note in various ornithological publications!

In my opinion, the passenger pigeon and Labrador duck in this country are utterly extinct - quite as much so as the great auk.

Not a few more of our species are now going in precisely the same way, such as the Carolina parroquet, the ivory-billed woodpecker, the sharp-tailed grouse and 44 other fine species of birds.

When the Japanese ship hundreds of bales of birds' skins for fashion purposes from the islands of the Pacific in one season, gulls, terns and albatrosses will not last very long. 

Not long ago, one invoice of hummingbird skins from South America totalled 400,000 skins! 

In Italy, the bird fauna has practically been exterminated, and this is rapidly coming to pass in hundreds of other localities - in the Far East, in South America, in Europe, Asia, and even in Africa and Australia.

In other words, all over the world birds are now being exterminated with enormous and ever increasing rapidity. 

Within the next few years, hundreds of species will become entirely extinct.

When a species - be it a bird or any other animal - once becomes extinct, it is never reproduced again.

In my opinion, the entire class known as Birds is now doomed to utter extinction.

In a century or so, the world will effectively be birdless.

When that time has expired, the class will be represented by only a few kinds which have survived through man’s having domesticated them. 

That this would be their fate I predicted nearly a quarter of a century ago, and I see no reason for changing my opinion.

All the protection they receive will not save them from their increasing natural enemies - from:

* Man and his numerous weapons and devices for their destruction

*The plume collectors and Italian destroyers

* Poison, cats and traps

* Boys all over the world with their airguns and destructive propensities

* The elements, as many thousands are drowned every year by being blown into the water

* The fact that they have no safe places of refuge

* Striking against wires, lighthouses and other structures

* The fact that they are oviparous, and, all over the world, their eggs are destroyed every year by the million, thus defeating their reproduction. 

Moreover, the human population of the world is now increasing with astounding rapidity.

When certain species of birds become nearly extinct, nothing protects them now, nor will anything protect in the future such species from destruction at the hands of the museum and ornithological collectors. 

No law will be of any avail, and, when such is the case, it will come too late.

A Labrador duck in nature today, wearing, as it does, a skin worth more than 1000 dollars, would stand no more chance for its life, were it found by any one with the means of capturing it, than would a man falling out of an airship when a thousand feet above the Earth.

It would be collected - that’s all!

This is what is going on right now. 

The plume and feather collectors all over the world reduce a species to the very door of extermination after which that species "does not pay to hunt", then the collector, finding that the bird is about to disappear forever, steps in and rakes in the rest for museums or private collections - each collector justifying himself by saying: "If I do not collect it, some one else will". 

How long does any one suppose our wood ducks will last, when certain of its feathers are now being advertised for 25 cents apiece?

It required a great many thousand years for birds to become completely differentiated from their reptilian stock.

When they did, they passed on to great perfection - in most instances to extreme beauty, to marvellously refined structure and song, and - unfortunately for them in only too many instances - to great delicacy of flesh. 

All of these factors will result in their destruction. 

There are fewer than 15, 000 different species in the world’s avifauna, and, from what I have pointed out above, I am of the firm conviction that there is no saving them. 

To me, it is a horrible thing to think of - a world without birds!