You are going to participate in Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend aren't you?
Fisheries and almost-everything-else Minister, Richard Benyon, is coming under pressure from fellow fishermen to allow culling of cormorants in their breeding season. We work closely with fishermen on a range of issues such as the Severn Barrage, river pollution and the Water Framework Directive but some of them are a bit bonkers. No you don't need extra powers to cull cormorants - you have plenty of unnecessary scope already. We hope that in his busy job, Mr Benyon has time to be sensible on this issue.
Forests - we'll hear soon of the government's actual plans on this subject. We will be scrutinising the consultation paper carefully and then making our views known. The timing of this article in the Independent cannot be accidental.
Waxwings - look out for colour-ringed birds. I see that some of the local Northamptonshire birds are carrying colour-rings clamped onto them by the Grampian Ringing Group earlier in the winter.
I'm looking forward to talking at the Sussex Ornithological Society Conference this weekend - but the other speakers on the programme are excellent so I'm looking forward to listening too.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
May be people should be shown how White tailed Eagles reduce Cormorant populations in NW Scotland and Scandinavia. Then they may have not put in such a fight to stop the Eagles coming to East Anglia!! We now have ground nesting Cormorants on the Solway. Give us a few Eagles Mark.
Bassman - agreed!
redkite - i agree with much of what you say too!
Brolene - welcome! I don't think I'll find myself in much agreement with your views from your opening remarks but that's OK.
Sooty - lots of inland cormorants in much of Europe. The licences are not difficult to get - do you have any evidence that they are or is that just an assumption?
Bonkers Mark? No. But of course the answer is not to shoot more cormorants. As redkite says the issue is the biodiversity and natural balance in the seas. What goes around comes around - do defra understand that? Have the RSPB been saying that to defra at the top of their voices? Sort that out and hey presto.
Stopping all commercial fishing isn''t going to happen - but it doesn't need to. Just having some sensible fishery polices will help.
Cormorant is more a problem of fishing lakes and inland waterways.Seems there are licenses to cull some but probably difficult to get and for sure there are now so many that they are damaging fish numbers at wildlife places which must affect other birds and otters at local places like the Somerset levels and Langford Lakes.We used to see odd ones but now suspect you could count 50 which is far too many.Fact is we are 30 miles inland and in about 1978 the first one locally made news and now they are everywhere.
I live in Nottingham many miles from the sea and it seems that the Cormorants are having a serious affect on the river Trent. I lived before in Hampshire and I understand that the Cormorant population has had a dramatic effect on the trout and salmon population on the Dorset Stour and the river Meon.
I understand that the Cormorants and some other birds used to inhabit the coastal areas but have now changed to inhabiting areas and nesting many miles in land.
I recently saw hundreds on some islands in the middle of Orleans in France hundreds of miles from the sea.
The RSPB want to forget about political correctness and admit that some birds like Cormorants and Magpies need to be culled.
I understand that it is the RSPB's view that Magpies do not decimate the garden bird popultaion. I would like to know if these same people look out in their back garden in the spring like I do and see many garden birds nests raided by Magpies.
This along with the cat population rising it is no wonder that the garden bird population is in trouble.
Are we going to see the RSPB preside over the extinction of many garden birds because they cannot admit the reality of the situation.