Was it just me - maybe it was - but was Peter Kendall in a bit of a bad mood today?
Have a look at the Farmers Guardian debate and judge for yourself.
Peter seemed very keen to have a go at me and the RSPB whatever I said.
And how predictable to see NFU mouthpiece Guy Smith going back to criticising the FBI - there is precious little acceptance, by the NFU President or by Guy Smith, that there is a problem with farmland birds. The NFU's attitude to the environment may be summed up by Peter Kendall's phrase 'wrapping (farmers) in green tape'. Remember please, NFU, that's the taxpayers' money you get and so there do have to be some rules attached to it.
But very good to see lots of good comments - many I guess from farmers who are working closely with the RSPB in all sorts of ways.
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A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
You're right, it was probably a Sparrowhawk not a Hobby, I was guessing from a long distance, there was defintely a Harrier about though, Hen harrier I think. You boys have more tuned in eyes than me, but I know most my birds.
As said, I don't deny species I used to see more of as a boy like sparrows and yellowhammers have declined and changes in farming are one of the reasons and we do put measures in place to help bring them back. But I do get fed up with this idea that because species I see regularly on the farm are not one of the 19 on the Farmland Bird Index then they are not considered indicators of farmland bio-diversity. Its nonsense.
Nightjar, I won't deny there was intensification in the 1960s and 1970s, but there has been none in the last 25 years, in fact its the opposite, so to try to correlate species loss in the last 25 years with changes in farming doesn't add up.
EP
Paysan savant