Monday, 10 December 2012
Written by a good friend of mine - it appears that Grouse Moor owners and their keepers have gone back to the Victorian times and are happy to shoot everything they consider a threat regardless of the law and the desire of the rest of the country.
DEATH OF BOWLAND
BETH
Bowland Beth, a first year
female Hen harrier has been shot and recovered from a Yorkshire grouse moor.
I visited The
Forest of Bowland in Lancashire towards
the end of May in 2012. Bowland had once been the stronghold of breeding Hen
harriers in England. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there had been 20+
pairs. Then there’d been a decline which was reversed from 2003 to 2008
followed by a severe decline to none in 2012.
I was told that
at the moment the outlook for Hen harriers in England was dire. Perhaps this was
going to be the year when Bowland would lose its breeders, they were down to
single pair and that was in the north of England. Maybe I would be lucky and see Bowland Beth – named after the character
Bet Lynch in the TV soap opera Coronation Street. She was a female fledged at Bowland in
2011 and she had been fitted with a satellite transmitter. Satellite tracking
has revolutionised our knowledge of the Hen harriers comings and goings. From them
it may be possible to evolve a strategy to protect harriers. I’d already seen
the video recording made at that nest and I knew she was the most precocious of
the four chicks, the first to fledge.
I was shown a
print out from the satellite tracking Beth’s
journeys. On 23rd July
last year she left The Forest of Bowland and flew to the Yorkshire Dales
spending the autumn and early part of the winter on a grouse moor Bethween
Grassington and Pateley Bridge. Did she have some ancestral map in her brain
that enabled her pin point the best foraging areas but also the best places to
roost? She returned to Bowland on 2nd February 2012. In mid-March she again headed back to the
grouse moors in Yorkshire before returning to Bowland. In April she returned to
the grouse moors in Yorkshire and to my amazement, within the next ten days,
she travelled 450 kilometres to a point just north of Inverness. What racial
memory pulled her in that direction, were her ancestral ties linked to the
Orkneys? Anyway two days later she was
back in Bowland. I marvelled at the
mobility of this fine bird. I was told
that RSPB staff had seen her ‘skydancing’
and ripping up bits of heather so it looked like she is about to breed if she
can find a mate.
She had no luck
finding a mate, so on 1st May she left Bowland heading for
Drumnadrochit, passed through Forsinard in the flow country – that would have
been a good place to stay - and reached Thurso on 8th May. An epic
journey of 510 kms.
Over the next
twelve days she wended her way back south again and was in the Grampian
mountains by 20th May. What an adventurous, feisty lady she was and
no sign of a mate yet.
I had endless discussions
with conservationists and a grouse moor owner about what was being done to save
the Hen harrier from extinction in England. As long ago as 2006 The Environment
Council set up a Hen Harrier Stakeholders
Committee to try and resolve the conflict between the conservationists and
the owners of the grouse moors. At the moment there isn’t any conflict because
there aren’t any Hen harriers on grouse moors in England
If Hen harriers
were ever allowed to breed undisturbed and numbers increased sufficiently a
scheme has been discussed in which a quota of surplus Hen harrier chicks would
be translocated from grouse moors, reared artificially and then re-located back
to their original sites in the autumn. This has the potential to allow for Hen harriers
and driven grouse shooting to exist side-by-side. At the moment the status of
the Hen harrier as a breeding bird in England hangs by a thread and is
threatened by extinction. The government
have now made a commitment that there will be no extinction of English wildlife
by 2020. If they act immediately the Hen harrier can be saved as a breeding
bird in England.
Unbeknown to me
as I left to catch my train home, Bowland
Beth was homing in on the Forest of Bowland. When I’d last heard of her she
was in the Grampian Mountains. Now she was back in Bowland and quite close to
the nest site where she fledged in 2011. I missed her by about 5 hours.
She stayed at
Bowland for a couple of days and then on 25th May headed north-east
using the prevailing wind to settle on the grouse moors around Pateley Bridge.
This is where she had spent her last autumn and winter. It seemed as though she
had found a good billet for the summer. Her immediate future was secure.
When I got back
there was a message telling me that on June 3rd Beth was still near Pateley Bridge and letting me know that she was
fine.
Another fix on
11th June showed that Beth
had contracted her foraging range to the grouse moors around Nidderdale and
Colsterdale. This was probably due to
several days of prolonged rain. It was one of the wettest Junes in living
memory. Heavy cloud cover meant that for several days there was no accurate fix
on her. On about 14th June I was becoming concerned for her. Maybe
the transmitter had failed. The manufacturers were contacted and asked whether
the last fixes were reliable. I now felt sure that something had happened to Beth sometime between 8th and
11th June. Beth’s approximate
position on a map was known. The landowner
was contacted. He couldn’t have been more co-operative and arranged for the
head keeper to help in the search. Using a hand-held scanner Beth was located at 11 am on 5th
July. She was lying face down in a patch of heather and blueberry. The
satellite tag was plainly visible. A post-mortem showed that she had been shot.
A pellet had broken her leg and nicked the femoral artery. Tests showed really
good traces of lead embedded in the bone. Beth
probably would have been able to fly a few miles before she bled out and
collapsed onto the grouse moor where she was found.
Bowland Beth was a beautiful bird, an amazing bird. Her story is remarkable. We
should be celebrating her life now and her becoming a parent and tracking her
sons and daughters.
We will probably
never know what happened. Perhaps this fearless, naive bird went a wing beat
too far and had to run the gauntlet to regain the grouse moor which she knew as
home. We grieve that, illegally, she was cut down in the prime of life. I hope
she has not died in vain.
Saturday, 8 December 2012
You know it would be so nice if all
these damn websites would let you buy stuff without having to sign up, or
register, particularly if you are able to pay with PayPal. It’s so annoying and
frustrating, a very few have the option to just buy without all that crap – good on
you guys, it is much easier and much pleasanter.
Talking of good on you, which is sort of Australian, puts me in mind of the news today, what a
dreadful shame about the nurse who had the unfortunate experience of picking up
the phone to those Australian morons who thought it was clever to try and imitate
the queen. What should be a wonderful time for the Royal family spoilt by
idiots who obviously don’t have a brain cell, and how miserable for the nurse’s
family, I really feel for her and for them. Personally I hope the perpetrators never get a job again, they don’t deserve one. I
have never been one for practical jokes, I think they are mindless, stupid, unpleasant
and can be, as we have seen, incredibly hurtful. I also think that while we are
on the subject of TV and Radio Chat shows and the press – yes please - lets
have some laws to control them, because they sure as hell will not control
themselves and anyone who thinks they will is sadly mistaken.
I bought a couple of tins of soup
last week because the café is now closed, they were so awful that I went out
and bought a book on how to make soup – 400 recipes,. Well that was a waste of time and money, not one of them is
normal soup!!! I can have mushroom and pear, or chicken and lime or Chorizo
(which I loath) and a ton of things, but is there any bog standard nice ordinary
soup, nope, not one!! So if anyone wants a book on lots of fancy soups, I have one you
can have!!
The weather was glorious today, I
went for a lovely ride, got some work done, opened another day on my Jacqui
Lawson Advent Calendar – they are wonderful!! Took the dogs for all walk and in
a minute will get ready for the Owl Evening – only five to go!!
The aviary cleaning goes on
apace, and we had a major workshop tidy as well, its always a good thing to do
as for about a week you can actually find things again, until chaos re ensues!!
Its Adam last few days next week, he finishes on Wednesday! Then by the end of
the week I think he is off to Dubai. Simon finishes just before Christmas, so
over the Christmas period it will be very quiet, and I get to look after all
the birds, so I will be busy. John is continuing to do an amazing job on the
enclosures, I can’t believe how much up to speed we are. We should get the
worst of it done by Christmas at this rate, with only the Owl Courtyard and the
Small Falcons to get redone in January.
The forecast for next week is
back to cold, although I think people are forgetting how cold it was three
winters ago now, when we had five days of hoar frost and temperatures below -16
here – that was cold!!!
Monday, 3 December 2012
The rain is back!! But only temporarily I
hope. I am cooking three joints of lamb for an Owl Evening this evening. We are
putting it on in support of the village Church, the wall of the churchyard is
in imminent danger of collapsing and we will raise over £1000 for it tonight.
However the downside is that I have to cook the lamb that has been donated by
the Credland’s, and we know what I feel about cooking!!! Hope it survives!
The last two Owl Evenings went very well,
it was clear and bright with an almost full moon which always means that if the
sky is good, Cool Ground, the Snowy Owl looks just wonderful as you can see him
without our lights.
We are now closed although I think we
probably should have stayed open for this last weekend, but one can never tell,
certainly next year as Dec 1st lands on a Sunday, we will open and
close on the 2nd. Talking of which I bought myself and some family
and friends an Advent Calendar by Jacquie Lawson, you should get one, they are
tremendous fun. A really cheap way to have a lovely run up to Christmas, I have
decorated the tree in the calendar, and built a snowman, it’s very interactive
and wonderful to do. Just google Jacquie Lawson and it will come up, her cards
are superb anyway, as an e-card they are unbeatable.
The aviary cleaning and moving of birds
around moves on apace, and John is doing an amazing job of getting it all
organised, we are all very impressed and it may for once all be close to being
done before Christmas, which will make my job of looking after it all between
Christmas and New Year all the easier. Simon is back from the States, not sure
what is happening there, although I am told there are all sorts of innuendos on
FaceBook, but I still struggle with FaceBook I have to say. And I am not sure
why you would want to put everything on there!!
Mike and I, well OK mainly Mike, have
hopefully fixed the roof, but it looks like we are going to have to go for a
complete re roof next year, the tiles that are on there are far too large and
don’t work, so we have to go back to the kind that were on there before all
14280 of them!!! I have no idea how we are going to afford to do it, but we plan
on doing it ourselves which will cut the cost down, and if we save the old
tiles that will make some funds towards the new ones. I am really looking forward
to that as you can imagine!!!
 |
| Art with furry ears! |
I rode out both days at the weekend, it was
great fun, and lovely but cold weather, I had a good time, although I am not
sure Art did, I hope so. I did have a job to put my riding boot on as my toe is
not right, I went to the Dilk hospital on Friday, hoping to get it X-rayed, but
the X-ray people were not there, which was a drag. Ah well I am sure it will
get better over time, it probably needs resting and putting up – no chance of
that happening!
We took the Range-Rover into Buckland’s,
and as a precaution I untaxed and uninsured it afterwards, because I suspect it
may never come home again. It’s a great shame as I have had Range Rovers since
the 1980’s, and I love them, but needs must at this point, and I certainly can’t
afford to fix it if there is something major wrong, nor buy another one.
Although even if I was very rich (which would be lovely!) I would not buy one
of the new ones, they are hideous!! They look like someone has dropped
something really heavy on them, they are NOT a proper Range Rover!!!
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
What a shitty shitty week, the rain here
has been unbelievable, unless of course you live south of us in which case you
have probably had it worse. We actually cancelled the Saturday Owl Evening and
we have never done that in probably 14 years of Owl Evenings. But I doubt if
people could have got here and if they had negociated the floods, one huge one
at the end of our road, they would not have got back because it never stopped
raining. In fact it has only just about stopped now.
The flooding around Gloucestershire and
Herefordshire is bad, our ground is sodden and groaning with the amount of
water there is on and in it. And to cap it all my house has two leaks, one in
the loft room which has gone through into the bedroom below and now into the
larder, and the other in the main bathroom although that one rather helpfully
is coming through the electrics and running down the light cord, so I can catch
much of it in a bucket. All in all a depressing time I have to say.
The gardens apart from looking drenched are
also looking very very pruned!! Peter Dowle sent two men over for two days and
they pruned a substantial part of the garden with substantial pruning!!! It
looks a little bar in places. We did all the clearing – in all the rain, and
got soaked to the skin for four days, and Adam managed, heaven knows how, to get a
fire going and we burnt most of it, there is still a little to go, but it is
very wet right now. I am sure it will look great in the spring!!! I hope so
anyway.
We have also had visitors every day,
regardless of the weather!! They must be nuts, but it is good to see them.
Having said that we are also looking forward to the weekend when we close for
eight weeks, and so can get all the birds done early in the day and then move
forward with jobs.
John is now organising all the aviary
cleaning and clearing and moving of birds. Because we took a reasonable number
of birds up to Charlie’s, we have a bit of space which is wonderful, and so we
are cleaning, and moving pair around to where we think they may do better. I
brought a whole load of new perches down from Duncombe as we had had extra made
and generally we hope to get most done before Christmas, and at worst all the
barns containing early laying birds.
Art has been clipped – he looks very smart,
and now does not get so hot and sweaty when he is schooled. We hope to take him
over for a lesson to the local riding school next week, I will be pleased to do
it and see how he reacts to travel and then work, it may be rather more
exciting that I want!
I managed to stub my toe last Tuesday, I
did not think anything of it apart from swearing when it happened and hopping
around a bit. About three days later I noticed it was fairly bruised but now I
am lame on it, and I suspect I broke something as it is swollen and sore.
So not a great week, here is hoping that
December brings something better along, and perhaps my Range Rover will only
have a minor fault…………………..
Monday, 19 November 2012
Flipping Henry, another Owl Evening is over
and done, where does the time go, and it was another cool night, and a busy one
– full to bursting, so it was fun, not that they aren’t all fun.
So what has happened in the week, John,
Simon and Adam had a successful time at Duncombe, they finished all they should
have done and helped Charlie along the way I hope. They all came back very
excited about the place and the barns and the setting and everything about it.
John then discovered that his albino crow
had escaped while he was away, he and Lisa were devastated, he had the next
morning off and searched and searched, but no joy. Adam and Simon were off that
day, Adam went to a free course in London that did not turn out to be what he
had hoped, and sadly had Tash’s bike stolen off the roof of his car while it
was parked at the station. Simon saw us all working away getting ready to pack
up birds for the trip up and decided that he wanted to help, which was very
useful I have to say, because it was a tough and long day.
We had decided to catch up and box the
birds in the afternoon as we were leaving at 4.45am the following morning and
it would have been dangerous to the birds to catch them up in the dark. So all
the boxes were ready, clean and new carpet on the floor. The two trailers
hitched up and ready, and Colin Pennycuick who had contacted me previously
about taking tracings of various bird wings arrived for lunch and got his paper
and pens at the ready. We caught up 72 birds and took wing measurements from
over half, we coped them all, wormed them and gave them all Critical Care to
cope with the trip, boxed them up and put them in the various trailers, and
those that were going up in a van were put quietly in the stock room. We
started with the Steller’s and worked down from there, ending up with the
Burrowing Owls. It was only one day out of 8 years ago that we were packing up
189 birds to go to the US which was a little uncanny, and a few of the birds
were ones that had done that trip and back again! We are pretty efficient at
this sort of thing now I have to say.
So I then did the horse, took the dogs
round the field, had a shower and we all went up to the Yew Tree for a meal to
say goodbye to Anabelle. We had clubbed together and bought her a bike that
Adam had chosen, so that was going up too!
I left before the others (as usual) because
I was getting up at 4.00am – so was Anabelle, but she is much younger than I
am! 4.00am dawned, or rather did not dawn as it was dark and very foggy –
great, perfect for a five hour drive. David and Mark Kay arrived at 4.15am and
by 4.25 we had loaded up the last boxes and the bike, moved all the vehicles
out into the car park, and had a cup of tea. I drove the Landrover and horse
trailer, Mark and Linda were in the Range Rover and the bird trailer, Dave and
Mark had their large van and Anabelle had her car – she left us at the end of
the M50 as we were not travelling that fast.
We arrived at about 10.00am, and
immediately started to unload and put the birds into their various enclosures,
it took about two hours by the time we had unboxed them all and put the boxes
under cover. All the birds made the trip well and settled very very well in
their new enclosures, there was little in the way of crashing and they looked
wonderful, although Charlie said that the aviaries kept much cleaner without
birds in them however they were a little boring to look at after a while! We
had some lunch at the Centre, and Mark and David left at about 1.00pm, Linda
Mark Parker and I left at 1.30, leaving Charlie and Anabelle and Duncan and
Rebecca – two volunteers ( Duncan from Newent and Rebecca from Yorkshire) to
feed all the birds and carry on.
All are still fine and settled well, which
is very relieving. We filled up the vehicles, got five miles down the road the
and the Range Rover died. Thank goodness it was on the trip back, and thank
goodness for the AA who arrived within an hour, loaded the car up, hitched up
the trailer and we left them to it. I did mention that if they wanted to lose
the Range Rover on the way back that would be fine, but please return the
trailer. They dropped it off at about 10.30 that night. Linda Mark and I drove
back in the Landrover which behaved very well, because of the delay we hit
awful traffic on the M42 around the airport, but got home at about 8.00pm after
over 11 hours of driving!!
Friday we recovered and I had two riding
lessons, and Art was very good and so was I! Saturday we were busy and the owl
evening went well. The staff had managed to get three of the empty aviaries in
the tiny owl block winter cleaned, re perched and painted so we were finally
able to put out the Ferruginous Pygmy Owls, who are charming, very settled, and
enchanting all the visitors, I just need to find the time to do a sign for
them.
Sunday we had a half experience day and a
half teaching photo day and very few staff so I did the photo morning with
Linda teaching and Holly and John did the half experience day and Simon
demolished the old temporary cage that had held the Pygmy Owls, the weather was
perfectly glorious in the morning, a perfect late autumn day, it got a big hazy
in the afternoon but we still had a great day.
Today Clear Vision is coming to fix the
windscreen in the little van which I broke with a fence rail. Which reminds me……
I first phoned Autoglass to get a price – BE VERY CAREFULL!!! Their first quote
was over £500 so after a few choice words and a mention that it was probably
more than the vehicle was worth, they gave me a better one of about £380. I
then phoned Clear Vision who quoted £120!!! I did say that was great because
Autoglass had quoted far more, and the chap said that I was the second phone
call that day with the same problem. SO phone around if you need a windscreen
and remember that if your insurance company is using Autoglass which mine is,
phone them and tell them that they need to phone around as well, because if
they are being charged £500 instead of £120 which I suspect they are – that is
one of the reasons insurance is high.
Saturday, 10 November 2012
We have just finished our second Owl Evening, it was crisp and cold, no moon but plenty of stars, the birds all did really well and the whole thing was seemlessly good!! The new indoor flying area is stunning with the low level lighting, I am so pleased with it, far better than the old Education room. I have just checked round, given Art some more hay, given the dogs a run and am eating really cheap microwaved fish fingers - and yes, you can tell they are cheap! Shame I bought two packets really!
The duncombe finishing team are off at 5.00am tomorrow morning, will I wave them goodbye, probably not!! Although I might, you never know. Hummmmmmm the last two fish fingers are still cold - yuck! I have a riding lesson first thing and then its girls day at the Centre, Holly, Anabelle and I! We have a half day, but thank goodness the photo day is postponed, otherwise we would be a bit tight for staff.
I have finally started a very late newsletter, and realised that there is a ton of stuff to go in to catch up. Still it will be good to get back into getting new stuff up on the website, I have been lax putting stuff up, but then I really have been away such a lot it is not surprising.
I missed having Mozart there on the Owl Evening, Hemp has taken his aviary, and loves it, but although she is wonderful, it is not quite the same.
The boxes to move all the birds are nearly ready, everyone has been getting the boxes that I used to move to and back from the US down from storage and ready to go up to Helmsley, they have proved very useful and I sell the occasional one if a zoo needs to move birds as they are good boxes and have passed the test of time. I might even get my money back on them eventually, although I doubt it!! We are taking two trailers full and one van, so it will be an interesting trip.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
 |
| The Nepal Vulture Breeding team!! |
Nepal, November 4 - 7th and the weather was lovely,
sunny and warm but not too hot, although it was interesting that the Nepalese
and Indians all wanted the heaters on and the British all went round and turned
them off!!! The hotel was pleasant, with
nice gardens and the hot water was hot, which was a huge bonus. This trip was
for the main yearly SAVE which stands for Save Asian Vultures from Extinction.
It’s a group that encompasses India, Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
We cover the monitoring of vultures in the wild, the implementation of Vulture
Save Zone, these are zones that are made safe for the wild birds, and
eventually these will be areas used for releasing the captive bred birds as
well. Advocacy is covered and is crucial because without political lobbying to
make sure that diclofenac (and sadly now
other NSAIDS that have proved to be toxic as well) is properly banned for use
as veterinary drug, our breeding efforts will be a waste of time. We cover the breeding programmes, looking forward to the
first releases and various other topics over a two day period. It is hard work,
but when we finally succeed with the project it will all be very worth-while.
That was pretty much the last big
trip this year, which is good because things they are a ‘changing at the
Centre. On my return from Nepal last time, Michele had left to go back to the US and work
on her degree. We miss her, but have a number of work experience people waiting
in the wings to come and join us. However it was more of a surprise when Adam announced that
he felt he wanted to leave and challenge himself to work in the conservation
field, i.e. go out into the field for research, as have Ben and Nasha. He is
planning on funding it with his artwork, which is first class, and all we can
do is wish him the best of luck with it all. He will be with us until the end
of February.
It came as a much bigger surprise when Simon also announced that
he felt very stale and was not even looking forward to the next breeding season, or flying his goshawk, and so wanted to leave. He has been our Curator for four years
and been solely in charge of the breeding. He has also gone to India three
times to assist with the incubation training there. The breeding season is very
tiring and stressful, particularly if you work alone, which Simon likes to do
and our breeding season is also very long, in fact we have eggs already, and chicks so there
are very few months of the year when none of the birds are breeding, so I can
understand his feeling of tiredness and staleness, and again we can only wish
him the best of luck with his future – oh and don’t forget to take your
motorbike Simon!
All this might seem shocking, but
no staff member stays for ever, they have other things they might want to do,
and other lives that they live. The Centre carries on, there will be changes,
but they may be for the good, you can never tell. We will look forward, new
people will come, although not straight away, the birds will be as well looked
after as ever and we will welcome our visitors with pleasure as ever.
For now the next thing we
concentrate on, is getting the ICBP
Duncombe Centre finished so that we can take up a significant number of birds
into their new and very smart and comfortable enclosures. This will happen this
month, thus giving us a number of spare enclosures at Newent, and that means we
can refurbish, tidy, clean and paint them and move birds around so that they
are also more comfortable – and all this before Christmas!!! So all volunteers
feel free to come in and help us during the second half of November and
December up to about the 21st!
So although there is great change
coming at the Centre, its an exciting time for us, both at Newent and the new
branch in Helmsley.
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