A TAXIDERMIST from Traunstein in Bavaria has been sentenced to pay a fine of 1,200 euros for illegally trading stuffed hunting trophies.
The individual traded in stuffed woodcocks, tufted ducks, jays and magpies despite the practice being illegal.
The offence came to light when the creatures were offered for 400 Euros over the internet.
STAND bookings for the proposed Global Birdfair in July have been off to a flying start.
According to founder and director Tim Appleton, no fewer than nine would-be exhibitors booked - and paid for - space within the first 40 minutes of bookings being opened.
It is understood that early birds include:
* BTO
* RSPB
* Mammal Society
* Lynx Edicions
* Woodland Trust
* Butterfly Conservation
* British Birds magazine
* Chris Packham
* Dominic Dyer
* Bird Guides
* Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
* Fair Isle Bird Observatory
* PlantLife
* Swift Conservation
* Spurn Bird Observatory
* Falklands Conservation
* Eyebrook Wild Birds Food
* SEO Birdlife - Sociedad Espanola de Ornitologia.
The enthusiasm has provided a bumper vote of confidence (and source of early cashflow) for Mr Appleton and his team who decided to launch the venture after the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust controversially pulled the plug on the long-established Birdfair held at nearby Rutland Water.
It is not known if the LRWT, or its sister trusts, will seek to take stand space at the new venture which is being held at the Rutland Showground (accommodating 13 fields over 150 acres) just outside Oakham between July 15-17.
Stand prices at Global Birdfair start at £525 for one measuring 3-metres wide by 3.6-metres deep on a grass plot within a marquee.
More details from: https://globalbirdfair.org
This spring has seen the long-awaited publication of The Wryneck by former Liverpool man Gerard Gorman who now lives and works in Hungary where he devotes much of his time to researching and writing about the world's woodpecker family of which the wryneck is one. The book is published at £24.99 by Pelagic Publishing whose marketing co-ordinator, Rhiannon Robins, provided us with this fascinating interview with the author.
When did your fascination with woodpeckers and related species begin?
I have been asked this many times, and the simple answer is that I do not know. I don’t recall a single experience that started it off, but as a child I always preferred woodland birds and wildlife. Then, many years later, when I left England, I found myself in places with up to ten woodpecker species, not the three or four that you could possibly see in Britain. Later still, when I joined the Hungarian Ornithological Society, I found that most colleagues were studying raptors, storks and Great Bustards, so I focused on woodpeckers in the forests where I felt at home.
What motivated you to write a monograph about wrynecks?
All birds are fascinating, and you can make a case for writing about any species, but the wryneck really is intriguing. I haven’t met anyone who disagrees. I’d spent a lot of time with wrynecks and read all I could about them, but most of the literature was in German. I was surprised that there was so little on this popular bird in English, so I decided to address that.
What makes the wryneck such an unusual woodpecker species?
Where to start? It’s a woodpecker that does not peck wood. It doesn’t even look-like a ‘real’ woodpecker, with its delicate bill and soft, rounded tail feathers. It is unable to excavate its own nest cavity so relies on those of other woodpeckers or tree hollows or the like. That’s why they readily take to nest boxes. It’s also one of the very few woodpeckers in the world that truly migrates, and the only one in Europe, with most birds leaving their breeding areas in autumn and returning in spring.
Tell us about your most memorable encounter with a wryneck.
A few autumns ago, in Bulgaria, a friend suggested we visit a ringing-camp. I asked if there would be a chance of seeing a wryneck there. He treplied: "Not much chance - they haven’t had one for weeks and in any case it’s not that regular there.". When we arrived, the main ringer greeted me with a wide grin and took a wryneck out of a bag. After ringing it, taking photos, and releasing it, we left. Within minutes the phone rang, they’d caught another one, so we hurried back. The ringer’s grin was even bigger. He said something in Bulgarian and all the locals burst out laughing. My pal translated it for me: "I don’t remember ever trapping two wrynecks in one day, then you come along and we get two within ten minutes. You’ve got wryneck karma!"
Whereabouts in the world have you travelled to study this species?
Mostly in Hungary where they are not uncommon in the right places. We put up nest boxes for them. I’ve examined them in ringing camps in several countries and seen them in the field in many places, from the Baltic to the Balkans, Iberia and North Africa, too.
What kind of fieldwork and research contributed towards the book?
I put together a small team in Hungary called Operation Wryneck. We designed and erected special wryneck nest boxes. This spring when the birds return, we will involve some youth members, get them interested, showing them the habitats and putting up more boxes. When researching the book, I also visited museum bird collections in Vienna and Budapest. I read (in translation when needed) as much non-English literature as possible. I’ve always done that as there is a wealth of important woodpecker literature out there that inevitably goes under the English-speaking radar.
What was the most interesting fact that you learnt about wrynecks while researching this book?
Not so much ‘interesting’ as ‘shocking’ . Every autumn, during migration, long lines of trammel nets are put up along Egypt’s Sinai coast for the purpose of catching quails for the meal table. These nets ensnare huge numbers of those birds but also many others, including wrynecks, which are regarded as worthless and destroyed, not released. The numbers dying in those nets are alarming. Millions annually. There are dedicated people trying to tackle this, but in that region, hunting and trapping, both legally and illegally, is ingrained and laws, when they exist, are flouted. I’d heard stories of this but was not aware of the extent and the numbers involved.
How have wryneck numbers changed over recent years?
Overall, they are in decline. Wrynecks disappeared from Britain as a breeding bird decades ago. It seems that the decline began a long time ago too, perhaps in the 1800s, before the ‘modern’ problems of unsuitable farming and woodland management methods took hold. Despite several theories, it is worrying that we still do not really understand the reasons for the decline and ultimate extirpation.
What threats are wrynecks facing?
There are problems in breeding and wintering areas and during migration. The loss of breeding habitats, intensification in farming and woodland management and the general industrialisation of the countryside are all involved. In some parts of Europe, the disappearance of old orchards, which have been felled or ‘modernised’, is another problem. Land-use in wintering areas is probably a factor, too. I’ve already mentioned the problem of trapping on migration routes.
How have wrynecks been symbolised in folklore and culture?
When I looked into this, I was amazed at what I found. Wrynecks have an incredibly rich cultural history. They have been demonised and persecuted but also admired and even venerated. They appear in myths dating back 1000s of years to Ancient Babylonia and Classical Greece. The head-twisting defensive performance they usually do when handled, perhaps predictably led to their becoming associated with snakes, and as long ago as 350 BC, Aristotle wrote about this in his History of Animals. Wrynecks are called ‘snakebirds’ in rural and folk dialects in many countries. Being a ‘snakebird’ did them no favours. One of my favourite fables is more recent. In the early 1990s after the reunification of Germany, the German name for the species, ‘wendehals’ ,was used for opportunists who conveniently changed their political standpoints from left to right, winding from communist to capitalist, just as wrynecks twist their necks.
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| A bird - but not as we know it. One of the studies to be sold at auction |
A SET of fve paintings of imaginary birds by artist and poet Edward Lear are set to go under the hammer tomorrow (March 1).
They are believed to date between 1827 and 1830.
The birds are based on species such as bullfinch, toucan, hoopoe, bee-eater and jay, but Lear has used his imagination to vary colours, feather patterns and habitats.
The paintings are lots 245-249 at the sale being held in Salisbury by auctioneers Woolley and Wallis.
They are expected to sell in the range £1,000 to £1,500.
More details at https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk
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| The damaged windscreen of the targeted car |
A PATROL car used by bird conservationists in Cyprus has been severely damaged.
The incident happened while the Toyota car - used by volunteers for the Committee Against Bird Slaughter - was parked in a residential area in Pyla in the Larnaca district of Cyprus.
It is thought the damage was caused by a large, illegal pyrotechnical device attached to the windscreen
Says CABS investigations officer Bostjan Debersek: "At around 5.45pm, we heard a loud bang and saw a lot of smoke.
"It was our car and parked close to our apartment.
"Many people from the complex came to see what happened and a large crowd gathered."
Officers from the bomb squad and police investigators sealed off and swept the scene.
The incident is the latest in a series of violent attacks and death-threats against conservationists who are working to combat illegal bird poaching in Cyprus by criminal gangs.
On Christmas Eve an aggressive poacher known to the authorities threatened a police officer who accompanied CABS volunteers to an illegal trapping site in Zygi.
The trapping site was equipped with six huge nets and a tape lure.
Six song thrushes and a barn owl had been caught in the net, with 23 more birds dead in a bucket, freshly killed by the trapper.
In November, three masked trappers jumped on a CABS member and beat him almost unconscious leaving him with blood pouring from his head.
Two of the attackers were later arrested and are expected to face charges.
Says CABS president Heinz Schwarze: "The illegal trade with poached songbirds is a “million Euro business” which is being protected by those who profit from it.
"Last year alone, members of CABS documented and reported over 250 cases of illegal trapping and hunting to the Cypriot authorities.
"It is wrong that those who are responsible for these eco-crimes can walk around with impunity, while conservation wardens and CABS volunteers and are continuously being targeted, their property being vandalised, plus death threats and abuse.
"The Cyprus Government needs to invest resources in proper wildlife law enforcement rather than appeasing the poaching lobby.
"It is time to stop sitting on the fence and take a clear stand against illegal bird poaching and protect activists who document and report environmental crimes.
"It is clear that the police anti-poaching unit, which was dissolved in 2019, urgently needs to be reinstated in order to tackle the spiralling problem of illegal poaching of protected species."
He continued: "The people involved in these crimes are hardened criminals - they need to be dealt with the full force of the law, not by the likes administrative officers and conservation wardens."
From the Grantham Journal, August 8, 1958
An unusual visitor to Great Gonerbv last weekend proved to a young puffin which had evidently become so exhausted in its flight Irom the coast that it could get no further.
It was found by a young villager, David Fox, who works at Grantham post office, his attention being attracted by the bird's unusual appearance as it lay in a field off Belton Lane.
Apart from rather striking colouring, puffins have exceptionally large beaks, though in the case of younger birds like this one the beaks are not fully developed.
The puffin was unable to fly, so David had no difficulty in picking it up to examine it, and, realising it was an unusual bird, he took it along to Colin Pask, also of Great Gonerbv and a 15-year-old King's School boy who takes a great interest in bird life.
He, too, was unable to recognise what type of bird it was, but, by enlisting the help of Mr. G. F. Johnson, principal of Grantham College of Further Education, the bird was identified as a young puffin.
They were very surprised that it should have come so far inland as they haunt offshore waters and use the turfy slopes of cliffs for nesting.
In view of the westerly winds of the weekend, it seems probable that the puffin had been driven inland by storms not from the East Coast but from the West.
To confirm the identification, Mr. Johnson took the puffin to a naturalist friend at Sleaford who photographed the bird, still unable fly, standing on Mr. Johnson's hand.
With none of the bird's usual type of food available, it was decided to take it to the coast, and it was put in the sea at the nature reserve at Gibraltar Point.
For Colin Pask, the fact that it was a sea bird was of particular interest as he starts 16 days' holiday shortly at the bird observatory at Spum Point where also spent a holiday last year.
Avian screwdriver? Amusing or outrageous? Fund management company Guinness Global Investors has given this green woodpecker more than a bit of a tweak in its new advertising campaign.
