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| Laurence Rose - former RSPB director who was born in London, grew up in Kent and now lives in West Yorkshire |
WAS it a luncheon event at a swanky restaurant in London back in 1903 that triggered the reprieve from extinction of the Red Kite?
It was at the Restaurant Frascati on Oxford Street that members of the British Ornithologists' Club learned that persecution, followed by rampant egg-collecting, had reduced the Red Kite's population in Britain to no more than between three and 10 pairs, all nesting in remote oak-wooded hills in mid-Wales.
After they had finished their sumptuous meal (the Frascati specialised in French, not Italian, cuisine), the diners had an impromptu whip-round.
This raised a start-up fund of £47 to be spent partly on publicising the dire threat to the survival of the Red Kite and partly on funding a handful of 'wardens' who were tasked to protect nests from egg-collectors.
This fascinating account was told at the September meeting of the Grimsby RSPB group where guest speaker Laurence Rose, formerly the RSPB's Director of Northen England, gave an absorbing illustrated talk on birds that had come back from the brink - plus those that are, alas, already on the brink or very close to it.
It is actually the Kestrel which is Laurence's (current) favourite bird but the Red Kite evidently has a special place in his affection.
This dates back to his childhood days in Kent in the 1960s when, though the species was recovering, its fate still hung in the balance.
For the family's annual summer holidays, he persuaded his parents to spend the week in mid-Wales where, to his relief and delight, he saw his first Kite - but not until the very last day.
Thanks to a range of conservation measures, the Red Kite is now widespread not just in Wales but in many other parts of Britain.
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| Before becoming outlawed, egg-collecting (oology) used to be a respected branch of ornithology, and this journal (featuring a Red Kite on the cover) was established by its practitioners |
There is now even thought to be at least one breeding pair within 10 miles of the church hall in Cleethorpes where Laurence was giving his talk.
In retirement, he still works for the RSPB an in-house volunteer writer, specialising in birds of conservation concern, past and present.
Another raptor success story which has long captured his imagination is that of the White-tailed Eagle which, thanks to successful captive breeding projects, is now nesting in Sussex and possibly the Isle of Wight as well as in Scotland.
There is a tendency to use the term 'recovery' to describe what has been achieved with these two species, but he prefers the term 'restoration', noting that, historically, both would have been widespread and, in some places, common.
He said that certain villages and towns including Old English 'ern' or 'arn' in their names would, most likely, once have had a presence of eagles.
The speaker went on to predict that the White-tailed Eagle would be breeding somewhere on the Humber or Wash estuaries - possibly both - within the next 20 years. "I would put money on it," he declared.
Another 'bounce-back' species, the Bittern, which is now flourishing in many a British reedbed, also came into focus during the talk.
Not that the initials efforts to revive its once-tiny British population was an immediate success.
In fact, some early habitat-engineering measures turned out to be counter-productive because they obstructed channels favoured by eels and fish such as rudd which are among the species' favourite items of diet.
Laurence noted that the more recent growth in numbers of another wetland species, the Crane, was in some ways parallel to that of the Bittern - again thanks to increasingly judicious management of wetland habitat.
Sadly, many other birds have not enjoyed similar success. The number of those on the Red list - in other words, threatened with short- or medium-term extinction - has grown from 36 in 1996, when the list was first compiled, to 75 this year.
The most recent additions are believed to be six seabirds - Great Skua, Arctic Skua, Great Black-backed Gull, Arctic Tern, Leach's Storm-petrel seabirds and even the Common Gull, a species which, given its population decrease, now seems more inappropriately named than ever.
Also feared to be in decline in Britain, paralleling a similar trend on the Continent, are Kestrel and Sparrowhawk, possibly after having fed on mice or small birds that have been part-poisoned after inadvertently feeding on rodenticides.
The struggles of the Skylarks in the face of intensive agriculture have been known about by the RSPB for scores of years.
It would probably stimulate population recovery if more arable farmers were willing to incorporate nesting plots within their fields.
But according to Laurence, perhaps for "cultural reasons", many farmers have been reluctant to do.
"They don't mind providing wildlife habitat at the edges of their fields, but not the centre," he said.
Towards the end of his talk, Laurence emphasised how much he was enjoying his current work, especially as it was affording him access not just to the latest research but also the opportunity to explore archives of ornithological literature - "rabbit holes" as he described them - which were often yielding fascinating insights from yesteryear.
He hopes the material he is gathering will form the basis of a new book to follow those he has already written - Moon Rising, Framing Nature and The Long Spring.
His website is: https://laurencerose.co.uk
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