I have just read in British Birds July 2015, Vol. 108, 365 - 440 about the plight of the Yellow-breasted Bunting. In fact the article in BB gave it the title 'Is Yellow-breasted Bunting the next Passenger Pigeon?'
Apparently the Yellow-breasted Bunting, which was formerly Eurasia's most abundant species, has declined by 90% and retracted its range by 5,000 km since 1980! What? And the species has all but disappeared from eastern Europe, European Russia, large parts of western and central Siberia and Japan!
An aspect of the bird's ecology has been exploited and caused its decline. During migration and on the wintering grounds, Yellow-breasted Buntings gather in massive flocks at evening roosts making them very easy to trap in large numbers with nets for food.
Following initial declines of the species, hunting was banned in China in 1997. However, millions of Yellow-breasted Buntings were still being killed for food and sold on the black market as late as 2013. Consumption of these and other songbirds has increased as a result of economic growth and prosperity in east Asia. There was one estimate from 2001 of one million Yellow-breasted Buntings being eaten in China's Guangdong province alone!
As the article stated, to reverse these declines people need to be better educated of the consequences of eating these birds and indeed wildlife in general. It also goes on to say that an improved and more efficient reporting system is required for law enforcement.
Let's hope this works and the fortunes of this cracking bird can be reversed before it is too late!
Monday, 13 July 2015
Fingers Crossed For A Positive Outcome
Yesterday morning Huw and I met at Diana and Robert's farm to check some Kestrels. There seems to be a reoccurring theme going on here as when we looked in the box, you can see into it from a distance without having to climb up to it, there was just one Kestrel! It's like the Barn Owls all over again.
The Kestrel chick was very large and well-feathered, as you can see from the pictures below, and so we decided against ringing it as it was a touch too big and we didn't want it to fledge too early. Instead we had a quick look at the wetland, woodland and hedgerows. Surprisingly there was nothing on the wetland at all even though the mud looked very good and held good numbers of invertebrates for birds to feed on; I'll need to keep a close eye on it during the next few weeks and make regular visits.We did have a Banded Demoiselle which was our first record for the site.
Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler sang from the woodland and a party of Long-tailed Tits moved along the woodland edge. Two Buzzards called to each other and had put up with the usual mobbing from the local Corvids. There was plenty of Tree Sparrow activity around the boxes in the hedgerows and in the yard.
Later in the afternoon after I had got back home Robert phoned me to say that whilst he was scaling some cut grass in his meadow alongside the woodland he found the large Kestrel chick on the floor and he asked me what he should do. I informed Robert that the best thing would be to get the chick back into the box and when he went to do this he found the other chick on the woodland floor in very poor condition. It had obviously fallen, or jumped, from the box the previous evening and had got very wet and cold.
Robert had the suspicion that the chicks had been abandoned by the adults, possibly something had happened to one of both of them. I must admit whilst we were birding there for a couple of hours we didn't see any adult Kestrels. Robert got in touch with Raptor Rescue and a guy came out to collect the chicks. However, when they went up to the box the chick that we had seen in the morning had killed the weaker chick and had started to eat it. When John checked the crop of the surviving chick it was completely empty and hadn't eaten for sometime so Robert's suspicions of them being abandoned was correct.
Anyway John took the chick away and he thought it had a 75% chance of survival. All being well he will return the chick to the farm in a few days to release it back in to the wild. I'll let you know the outcome, but fingers crossed it will be positive!
The Kestrel chick was very large and well-feathered, as you can see from the pictures below, and so we decided against ringing it as it was a touch too big and we didn't want it to fledge too early. Instead we had a quick look at the wetland, woodland and hedgerows. Surprisingly there was nothing on the wetland at all even though the mud looked very good and held good numbers of invertebrates for birds to feed on; I'll need to keep a close eye on it during the next few weeks and make regular visits.We did have a Banded Demoiselle which was our first record for the site.
Kestrel (above and below). With hindsight it does look a bit miserable
and had every reason to do so!
Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler sang from the woodland and a party of Long-tailed Tits moved along the woodland edge. Two Buzzards called to each other and had put up with the usual mobbing from the local Corvids. There was plenty of Tree Sparrow activity around the boxes in the hedgerows and in the yard.
Later in the afternoon after I had got back home Robert phoned me to say that whilst he was scaling some cut grass in his meadow alongside the woodland he found the large Kestrel chick on the floor and he asked me what he should do. I informed Robert that the best thing would be to get the chick back into the box and when he went to do this he found the other chick on the woodland floor in very poor condition. It had obviously fallen, or jumped, from the box the previous evening and had got very wet and cold.
Robert had the suspicion that the chicks had been abandoned by the adults, possibly something had happened to one of both of them. I must admit whilst we were birding there for a couple of hours we didn't see any adult Kestrels. Robert got in touch with Raptor Rescue and a guy came out to collect the chicks. However, when they went up to the box the chick that we had seen in the morning had killed the weaker chick and had started to eat it. When John checked the crop of the surviving chick it was completely empty and hadn't eaten for sometime so Robert's suspicions of them being abandoned was correct.
Anyway John took the chick away and he thought it had a 75% chance of survival. All being well he will return the chick to the farm in a few days to release it back in to the wild. I'll let you know the outcome, but fingers crossed it will be positive!
Saturday, 11 July 2015
Bioabundance
If I was pushed just to receive one journal out of the countless
journals that I receive in a year then it would without a doubt be British Wildlife. So if you don't receive British Wildlife I would recommend that you take a look at this superb bi-monthly journal; well worth subscribing to.
A recent columnist in British Wildlife is Simon Barnes, but he is no stranger to wildlife journalism and I suspect is known to you all. In British Wildlife Volume 26, Number 5, June 2015 his column was about 'bioabundance', a word that he had to make up and it was a thought provoking piece so I have repeated it below. It's a bit lengthy but well worth reading.
We've made too much fuss about biodiversity and it;s been a tactical disaster. Not that I'm actually opposed to biodiversity. The problem is that out natural - our naturalist - fascination with the subject has blinded us. So, we've missed a trick. And it might be the most important trick of all.
We have established the notion that biodiversity is a wonderful thing. We have also managed to spread the idea that biodiversity is a good thing. It's widely accepted, albeit grudgingly, that biodiversity plays some kind of role in keeping the planet functioning.
The idea of losing a species is almost universally seen as a bad thing. Bad PR at the very least. Extinction is not something that anyone can laugh off these days. And that's a good point well made, but is has come at a price. That price is bioabundance.
See? There isn't even a word for it. I had to invent one. Take it on, use it, I make no charge. Tell your spellchecker to accept it. Tell everyone to accept it. Make it part of the debate, because its high time that the concept of bioabundance played a central part in the way we think about conservation.
By harping on about diversity we have given the impression that conservation is about tokenism. So long as we've still got a token number of Pandas, a token number of Californian Condors, a token number of White-tailed Eagles, everything is all right.
When it isn't.
Last year I visited a fish farm in Armenia (travelling with the World Land Trust) and it was like 50 Minsmeres all thrown together. Above the water was a swarm - flock is too puny a term - of Sand Martins: Sand Martins in thousands and thousands and thousands. They were feeding on aerial insects in invisible trillions.
That is what we've lost. That is what we are continuing to lose. The environmental crisis is not just about the extinction of species: it is also about the crashing numbers of ordinary everyday creatures. We are losing bioabundance and most people aren't worrying. Most people aren't even noticing.
Partly this is a matter of expectation. A young person has no memory of childhood journeys when you stopped the car every hour or so to clean the insects off the windscreen. No memories of seeing hundreds of Lapwings in a field scarcely bothering to turn your head.
The fall in numbers is not seen as a matter of urgent, desperate concern. The plight of creatures on the edge of extinction grabs our attention with much more vividness. It's a better story: and stories are the way we understand the world.
I'm not blaming twitchers; I'm blaming the twitching tendency within us all. Birding information sites never tell us that there are 10,000 Black-headed Gulls at a landfill, and, if they did, most birders would go there to pick out a Med Gull.
It;s in us all. It's part of the way we think. We relate to individual species. We love rarity. Above all, we take delight in the special. It's part of being human, part of loving the wild world - and we need to get that feeling under better control. We need to be less snobbish. We need to speak up for the common bird, for the working insect, for rights of the masses.
Our horror-stories should be connected with the shocking declines in our most visible groups, as recorded by the BTO and Butterfly Conservation. Our most celebrated wildlife events shouldn't be a whale in the Thames but a murmuration. We shouldn't be satisfied with a few token Corn Buntings: we need the hedges of Britain rattling with them, the sky singing with Skylarks, Lapwings back in the company of the dirt-common.
I thought about writing a book celebrating bioabundance: Wildebeest on the Serengeti, butterflies in the Chaco, Banded Demoiselles on the Waveney, Spinner Dolphins off Sri Lanka, Straw-coloured Fruit Bats in Zambia, Carmine Bee-eaters on the Luangwa River.
But I didn't, because what do I say? God, I tell you there were millions of the bloody things. Millions. Then I went somewhere else and there were millions of something quite different... It doesn't stack up as a story does it? It doesn't capture the imagination like a single Blue Whale or a night-hunting Leopard. But that's our Failing. We need to work on it. Now would be good.
Let's start bringing the world bioabundance into our debates and our reports and our stories and our pub conversations. Let's boast about vast clouds of midges, endless skeins of geese, uncountable flocks of House Sparrows (if you can still find them). Let's take up the cause of ordinary species and turn it into something special. Let's make bioabundance sexy.
And then try to get it back.
Food for thought indeed!
A recent columnist in British Wildlife is Simon Barnes, but he is no stranger to wildlife journalism and I suspect is known to you all. In British Wildlife Volume 26, Number 5, June 2015 his column was about 'bioabundance', a word that he had to make up and it was a thought provoking piece so I have repeated it below. It's a bit lengthy but well worth reading.
We've made too much fuss about biodiversity and it;s been a tactical disaster. Not that I'm actually opposed to biodiversity. The problem is that out natural - our naturalist - fascination with the subject has blinded us. So, we've missed a trick. And it might be the most important trick of all.
We have established the notion that biodiversity is a wonderful thing. We have also managed to spread the idea that biodiversity is a good thing. It's widely accepted, albeit grudgingly, that biodiversity plays some kind of role in keeping the planet functioning.
The idea of losing a species is almost universally seen as a bad thing. Bad PR at the very least. Extinction is not something that anyone can laugh off these days. And that's a good point well made, but is has come at a price. That price is bioabundance.
See? There isn't even a word for it. I had to invent one. Take it on, use it, I make no charge. Tell your spellchecker to accept it. Tell everyone to accept it. Make it part of the debate, because its high time that the concept of bioabundance played a central part in the way we think about conservation.
By harping on about diversity we have given the impression that conservation is about tokenism. So long as we've still got a token number of Pandas, a token number of Californian Condors, a token number of White-tailed Eagles, everything is all right.
When it isn't.
Last year I visited a fish farm in Armenia (travelling with the World Land Trust) and it was like 50 Minsmeres all thrown together. Above the water was a swarm - flock is too puny a term - of Sand Martins: Sand Martins in thousands and thousands and thousands. They were feeding on aerial insects in invisible trillions.
That is what we've lost. That is what we are continuing to lose. The environmental crisis is not just about the extinction of species: it is also about the crashing numbers of ordinary everyday creatures. We are losing bioabundance and most people aren't worrying. Most people aren't even noticing.
Partly this is a matter of expectation. A young person has no memory of childhood journeys when you stopped the car every hour or so to clean the insects off the windscreen. No memories of seeing hundreds of Lapwings in a field scarcely bothering to turn your head.
The fall in numbers is not seen as a matter of urgent, desperate concern. The plight of creatures on the edge of extinction grabs our attention with much more vividness. It's a better story: and stories are the way we understand the world.
I'm not blaming twitchers; I'm blaming the twitching tendency within us all. Birding information sites never tell us that there are 10,000 Black-headed Gulls at a landfill, and, if they did, most birders would go there to pick out a Med Gull.
It;s in us all. It's part of the way we think. We relate to individual species. We love rarity. Above all, we take delight in the special. It's part of being human, part of loving the wild world - and we need to get that feeling under better control. We need to be less snobbish. We need to speak up for the common bird, for the working insect, for rights of the masses.
Our horror-stories should be connected with the shocking declines in our most visible groups, as recorded by the BTO and Butterfly Conservation. Our most celebrated wildlife events shouldn't be a whale in the Thames but a murmuration. We shouldn't be satisfied with a few token Corn Buntings: we need the hedges of Britain rattling with them, the sky singing with Skylarks, Lapwings back in the company of the dirt-common.
I thought about writing a book celebrating bioabundance: Wildebeest on the Serengeti, butterflies in the Chaco, Banded Demoiselles on the Waveney, Spinner Dolphins off Sri Lanka, Straw-coloured Fruit Bats in Zambia, Carmine Bee-eaters on the Luangwa River.
But I didn't, because what do I say? God, I tell you there were millions of the bloody things. Millions. Then I went somewhere else and there were millions of something quite different... It doesn't stack up as a story does it? It doesn't capture the imagination like a single Blue Whale or a night-hunting Leopard. But that's our Failing. We need to work on it. Now would be good.
Let's start bringing the world bioabundance into our debates and our reports and our stories and our pub conversations. Let's boast about vast clouds of midges, endless skeins of geese, uncountable flocks of House Sparrows (if you can still find them). Let's take up the cause of ordinary species and turn it into something special. Let's make bioabundance sexy.
And then try to get it back.
Food for thought indeed!
Is This The Best Bird Report In The UK?
And as always what a fantastic read it was. It is in full colour throughout and at 245 pages it is quite a weighty tome for a bird report. The chapter headings are Chairman's welcome, Secretary's report, Warden's review of 2014, Migration diary, Systematic list, Breeding birds, Manx Shearwater census, Lighthouse attractions, Bird ringing, Arrival and departure dates, Non-avian animals, Butterflies, Moths and Grey Seals.
It ticks all the boxes in terms of what a UK bird observatory should report on but does so much more. One of the main things I like, besides coming out early for an annual report, is the 'Migration Diary' which sums up all the migration action for virtually every day of the year, which is very impressive indeed!
I am not going to say anymore about it other than if you are a lover of bird observatories or bird reports (I won't say if you are a lover of Bardsey, because if you are you will already have read it) then I can highly recommend it.
I didn't get out this morning because half way through my corn flakes in the early hours it started to pour down and it was still raining beyond the end of my cornflakes so I returned to bed. I know I'm a lightweight, but I knew it would have been really quiet if I had gone out in the rain. Now if it had been September........
I might have some Kestrels to ring tomorrow, although I suspect that they might be too big based on what Robert has told me, but I'll go and take a look.
Friday, 10 July 2015
Tyto Alba
Yesterday teatime Kim and I went to check and ring some Barn Owl chicks. I say some, but there was actually just one. There were two when we checked about three weeks ago but unfortunately older sibling must have consumed younger sibling! Anyway the single Barn Owl chick was ringed and returned to its unusual nest site. The nest site is in a large plastic bucket that is attached to steel girder adjacent to a large grain bin. In fact when the chicks get to the stage that they can half-fly they relocate to the grain bin!
If you haven't done so already can I urge you to complete the consultation on the birds and habitats directive that the EU are undertaking at the moment. They refer to it as a fitness check, but it is actually more like an attempt to weaken the laws that protect our wildlife. Without this protection the numpty in 10 Downing Street would wreak more havoc on our beleaguered wildlife than he already has!
You can complete the consultation via the RSPB HERE or you can go straight to the EU consultation HERE
The forecast is looking a bit mixed for weekend with Saturday the better day and the only day with a half chance of doing some mist netting in the reedbeds. I've also got some Kestrels to check, so it should be a busy and bird filled weekend for me.
Barn Owl
If you haven't done so already can I urge you to complete the consultation on the birds and habitats directive that the EU are undertaking at the moment. They refer to it as a fitness check, but it is actually more like an attempt to weaken the laws that protect our wildlife. Without this protection the numpty in 10 Downing Street would wreak more havoc on our beleaguered wildlife than he already has!
You can complete the consultation via the RSPB HERE or you can go straight to the EU consultation HERE
The forecast is looking a bit mixed for weekend with Saturday the better day and the only day with a half chance of doing some mist netting in the reedbeds. I've also got some Kestrels to check, so it should be a busy and bird filled weekend for me.
Sunday, 5 July 2015
Back In The Saddle
This morning Ian and I met relatively early to clear the net rides in the reedbed and willow scrub. The aim was to clear three net rides and whilst we were there if it was calm enough put the nets up, although to be honest we didn't expect to catch much or anything at all really as we would cause some temporary disturbance through the use of strimmers.
The net rides were cleared and we identified a fourth ride that we will use next time that could be okay for tape luring hirundines. When we put the three net rides up it was borderline due to the wind strength, but to our surprise we caught and ringed eight birds:
Chiffchaff - 1 (juv)
Willow Warbler - 1 (moulting adult male)
Whitethroat - 2 (both juvs)
Blue Tit - 1 (juv)
Goldfinch - 2 (juvs)
Robin - 1 (juv)
On the birding front it was fairly quiet and only just worth mentioning are singing Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting & Skylark, three Stock Doves and a Lesser Whitethroat.
Back home in the moth trap were the following:
Magpie - 1
Herat and Dart - 21
Garden Carpet - 2
Common Wainscot - 1
Flame Shoulder - 1
Large Yellow Underwing - 1
Dark Arches - 3
Green Pug - 1
I've got some Barn Owls and Kestrels to check this week, net rides to clear on the coast and hopefully some pre-work birding. And as I've been off work on holiday for two weeks I'll need to do some work as well!
The net rides were cleared and we identified a fourth ride that we will use next time that could be okay for tape luring hirundines. When we put the three net rides up it was borderline due to the wind strength, but to our surprise we caught and ringed eight birds:
Chiffchaff - 1 (juv)
Willow Warbler - 1 (moulting adult male)
Whitethroat - 2 (both juvs)
Blue Tit - 1 (juv)
Goldfinch - 2 (juvs)
Robin - 1 (juv)
Willow Warbler
On the birding front it was fairly quiet and only just worth mentioning are singing Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting & Skylark, three Stock Doves and a Lesser Whitethroat.
Back home in the moth trap were the following:
Magpie - 1
Herat and Dart - 21
Garden Carpet - 2
Common Wainscot - 1
Flame Shoulder - 1
Large Yellow Underwing - 1
Dark Arches - 3
Green Pug - 1
Garden Carpet
I've got some Barn Owls and Kestrels to check this week, net rides to clear on the coast and hopefully some pre-work birding. And as I've been off work on holiday for two weeks I'll need to do some work as well!
June's Ringing Totals
Over on the right you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for the year so far for Fylde Ringing Group. Up until the end of June we have ringed 1,138 birds of 43 species and we are 593 birds up on this time last year. In fact June has been our best month so far. Four new species were ringed for the year and these were Kestrel, Oystercatcher, Skylark and Sand Martin.
Below are the top five ringed for the month and the top ten 'movers and shakers' for the year.
Top Five Ringed in June
1. Sand Martin - 146
2. Starling - 47
3. Pied Flycatcher - 33
4. Blue Tit - 18
5. Reed Warbler - 11
Top Ten Movers and Shakers for the Year
1. Blue Tit - 159 (same position)
2. Sand Martin - 146 (straight in)
3. Great Tit - 99 (down from 2nd)
4. Willow Warbler - 98 (down from 3rd)
5. Starling - 68 (straight in)
6. Goldfinch - 66 (down from 4th)
7. Chaffinch - 56 (down from 5th)
8. Pied Flycatcher - 55 (straight in)
9. Lesser Redpoll - 49 (down from 6th)
10. Long-tailed Tit - 41 (down from 7th)
Below are the top five ringed for the month and the top ten 'movers and shakers' for the year.
Top Five Ringed in June
1. Sand Martin - 146
2. Starling - 47
3. Pied Flycatcher - 33
4. Blue Tit - 18
5. Reed Warbler - 11
Top Ten Movers and Shakers for the Year
1. Blue Tit - 159 (same position)
2. Sand Martin - 146 (straight in)
3. Great Tit - 99 (down from 2nd)
4. Willow Warbler - 98 (down from 3rd)
5. Starling - 68 (straight in)
6. Goldfinch - 66 (down from 4th)
7. Chaffinch - 56 (down from 5th)
8. Pied Flycatcher - 55 (straight in)
9. Lesser Redpoll - 49 (down from 6th)
10. Long-tailed Tit - 41 (down from 7th)
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