Bygone birding: 'The weakest living thing on the face of the earth has its rights'

Extract from the introduction to Our Bird Friends - A Book for All Boys and Girls (1900) by Richard Kearton co-written with his brother, Cherry Kearton.

I am very sorry to say that many country boys are guilty of thoughtlessly smashing birds' eggs, and some even of the unspeakable cruelty of killing little baby chicks, and barring up with stones mother birds brooding in holes in trees and banks, and leaving them to starve to death. 

Such conduct is a disgrace to any British boy, whether he be the son of prince or peasant, and one would like to ask those who do such things what they would think of a giant who treated them in a similar manner. 

Not long ago, a gentleman in Suffolk came upon a boy beating a small brown object in the middle of a turnpike lane with a stick, and exclaiming after each blow: "I'll learn you for being a toad!"

He taught that lad a lesson by applying his stick vigorously to his back, and exclaiming at each stroke: " I'll learn you for being a boy!"

Let us not forget that the weakest living thing on the face of the earth has its rights, and that it is both wicked and cowardly of us to abuse our superiority of mind or body over inoffensive members of the brute creation.

87 volumes in New Naturalist series sell for almost double highest estimate at Gloucestershire auction

                    

The strong market for collections of books in the New Naturalist series was reflected when 87 volumes (above) sold for  £580 at an auction in Cirencester staged by Dominic Winter yesterday, February 7. This was well above the pre-sale estimate of £200-£300. In July, last year, 114 volumes (below) dating 1945-2012 fetched £450 at a sale held by the same auction house.

Bids of up to £300 are expected for collection of New Naturalist volumes at Gloucestershire auction

A pre-sale estimate of between £200 and £300 has been put on a collection of New Naturalist volumes  which is due to go under the hammer at a sale being conducted by specialist book auctioneers Dominic Winter, of Cirencester,  on Wednesday February 7. Also included in the sale are other items  of ornithological interest including works by Archibald Thorburn.

Baroness Bennet: It's time to halt - or 'massively reduce' - number of pheasants introduced into countryside

 

Baroness Bennett - authoritative on environmental issues

During debates in the House of Lords, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle regularly speaks on farming and environmental issues for the Green Party. In her latest contribution on January 25, she took issue with other peers who argued that control of predators, such as corvids and foxes, was one of the keys to safeguarding farmland birds such as buntings, curlews and skylarks. Her  case was that it was the artificial introduction of gamebirds, chiefly pheasants, into the countryside that had resulted in an increase of predators. Here is  an extract from her speech. 

As confirmed in the State of Nature Report of 2023, the decline in the abundance of farmland birds is primarily due to increase in intensive farming practices - not natural predation. 

Predators are a marginal factor in farmland bird species abundance for a few species only.

                                                

More introduced pheasants leads to more predators says Green Party peer

One reason why, in some areas, we have such an abundance of predators is the massive release of large numbers of gamebirds, particularly pheasants.

We are talking about a slow, non-native, not-very-well-adapted-to-our-environment feast for our predators, so we have lots of them. 

There is a very obvious alternative: to stop, or at least massively reduce, the amount of release of 'food' into the environment. 

Then we will have fewer predators. 

As an aside, we might also have a bit more safety on our roads.

Female ornithologist was forgotten by the world - until her book starred at Gloucestershire auction

Leather-bound - Minstrelsy of The Woods

                                                     

ALTHOUGH  thing have changed in the 21st Century, the profile of  women in ornithology has historically been almost non-existent with very few having had their writings published.

However, one exception is Susan Waring whose work,  The Minstrelsy of the Woods, was published by Harvey and Darton, in 1832.

Ms Waring had a rare moment in the sun this week when a rare copy of her book  was one of the lots  in a sale conducted by  Gloucestershire-based  auction house Dominic Winter.

The pre-sale estimate was that it would fetch between £150 and £200 but, in the event, the  bidding reached £320 before the hammer fell.

The identity of the buyer is not known but he or she has certainly not overpaid.  

Minstrelsy is an endlessly enchanting  celebration  - in prose and poetry and art -  of a whole range of bird species from golden eagle to woodlark.

By modern  standards, Waring's writing is sentimental but it  is also refreshingly full of detail, particularly on the nature of a bird's plumage and on the mysteries of migration.

Not perfect, but there's something enchanting about this yellow wagtail 

                                  

Keep on yaffling - everybody loves a green woodpecker

Song thrush - but is that an unidentifiable  bird on the branch behind?

The author has a lot - all of it good - to say about the goldfinch 

Crash-course in birding for Government minister as RSPB chief takes him walkabout at Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire

 

All kitted out - Beccy Speight and Steve Barclay prepare to set off on gannet safari

IS this the most encouraging photograph of the week? 

Environment Secretary Steve Barclay accepted an invitation to talk all things birds with the Chief Executive of the RSPB, Beccy Speight.

The location - the society's reserve Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire Coast - was perhaps not the best. 

It is still too early for the site to resonate to the sights and sounds of thousands of nesting puffins, fulmars, kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots and more.

But at least gannets were moving over the North Sea - and maybe a few red-throated divers could be seen in the distance.

The Blackpool minister, who took over the environment portfolio from Therese Coffey in November last year, is not  a birder - at least not yet.

But his constituency, North East Cambridgeshire, is on the edge of the Great Fen and offers plenty of habitat for wetland species.

Evidently the pair struck up a cordial rapport - one which immediately paid dividends.

The very next day, the Government announced a ban on industrial fishing of sandeels - prey for many marine birds - in British waters.

What next? A ban on herbicides, pesticides and fungicides on all farmland? 

If his schedule allows, the minister hopes to make a return visit to Bempton in summer - and possibly to Minsmere in Suffolk or some of the RSPB's other reserves.

  

So much money spent, so little achieved. Why are we failing 'so badly' to safeguard our wildlife?

Curlew - a species whose nest is vulnerable to predation by foxes, badgers and corvids

Hereditary peer Lord Caithness (75) has enjoyed a distinguished career in the House of Lords, serving under many Conservative prime ministers as far back as Margaret Thatcher. He is a landowner and a birder. During a speech last week in the Lords, he championed the cause of predator-control which he believes to be necessary if vulnerable bird species and other wildlife are to be saved.  Below is an extract from his speech.

Given the large sum of taxpayers’ money spent annually on agri-environment schemes, this country should have a surfeit of wildlife. 

It does not. So why has it failed so badly? 

It is widely acknowledged that there are three legs to the stool of nature conservation.

They are: 

* Providing habitat

* Providing good food sources

* Legal predator management 

The first leg has been available for some time and the second is more recent, but the third is not - and a two-legged stool does not function well.

It is just too simplistic and naive to blame all the failure on farming operations.                                          

Lord Caithness - 'two-legged stool does not function well'

It is true that habitat provision through agri-environment schemes has produced benefits for certain aspects of the life cycle for a great many species. 

The provision of attractive nesting habitat, foraging areas in summer and winter, and winter food resources in the “hungry gap” has helped. 

The cirl bunting and corncrake are notable beneficiaries. 

The introduction of new premium payments for certain high-priority actions, including nesting plots for lapwing, is welcome. 

However, of deep concern are the many examples of the provision of habitat alone not halting decline of species, let alone bringing about recovery. 

I would mention puffins, Manx shearwaters, water voles, brown hares, grey partridge, black grouse, curlew and lapwing.

In 2015 and 2016, as part of the curlew recovery initiative based on the Shropshire/Welsh border, 30 nests were monitored to find the cause of curlew breeding failure in a significant local population in excellent habitat. 

In each year, only one per cent  of nests got beyond the egg stage to produce chicks. 

All chicks were subsequently lost. 

Over 50 per cent  of the egg predation was by foxes and 25 per cent by badgers, which are protected, with crows also being a significant nest robber.

Approximately £23-million per year is spent on agri-environment options to support breeding waders on grassland, but given the poor results, one must question whether this is good value for money.

Clearly, more needs to be done, and there is good evidence across Europe that, where the provision of the right habitat alone has failed, the combination of habitat improvement and targeted, effective predation management can lead to the recovery of species of conservation concern.

As a result of a conservation programme led by the RSPB, Natural England, the Landmark Trust and the National Trust to exterminate the rats on Lundy Island in the early 2000s, seabird numbers have been restored to levels not seen since the 1930s. 

For instance, puffin numbers have increased from 13 birds in 2002 to 375 in 2019. 

Despite this species management success, the RSPB still argues that management does not work. 

Its recent research on the response of breeding waders to predation management is arguably flawed as it did not apply predation management to the level of intensity recommended by professional game and wildlife managers. 

That meant that it was always likely to be ineffective - possibly, that is what it was designed to be. 

It was also unethical.

If one is going to take one species in support of another, one needs to ensure that one’s approach is effective. 

Furthermore, if the RSPB claims that species management does not work, I wonder why it is a partner in the project to eradicate stoats, which have been posing a threat to Orkney’s internationally important wildlife since their introduction there in 2010.

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, or GWCT, has proved the RSPB wrong on predation management of wildlife on farms.

Some 30 years of careful scientific research on its commercial demonstration farm in Leicestershire have demonstrated that numbers of songbirds and other wildlife numbers across the farm are significantly higher when there is proper species control than when there is not.

It has followed the three-legged stool principle and, with management, songbird numbers have doubled alongside a commercial farming operation.

It is good to read reports of the water vole, better known to some as Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, returning to areas in which it once thrived. 

They were virtually wiped out, mostly due to predation by mink, which decimated whole colonies. 

Now, with the successful use of the GWCT-designed mink trap, numbers are rising again, proving that targeted management can benefit a variety of endangered species.

Given that it is so important to improve wildlife numbers, I ask my noble friend why the Government is not introducing a set of funded standards to contribute towards the cost of the management required to aid the recovery of species, especially those on the red list, when there is so much evidence to prove that it works.