It all started as a quiet day in the office, until my colleague, Guy Shorrock, called up - we had received a report of a person using a cage trap baited with live canaries to catch birds of prey!

The next morning I drove across to Easington Colliery, County Durham, to check this out, and found myself scrabbling about in the dense undergrowth around the rear of a secluded garden for about two hours. However, at the end…