In the Sunday Times yesterday Rod Liddle writes about Songbird Survival and interviews one of their trustees Nick Forde.
You have to pay Rupert Murdoch to read it or watch the video but you might just find it worthwhile.
Liddle tests Forde on his songbird identification - with, it has to be said, some pretty tricky species (meadow pipit, corn bunting and lesser whitethroat - and he fails. But he can recognise a pheasant.
Angela Smith MP, who is a doughty defender of birds of prey, is interviewed by Liddle on camera.
Songbird Survival's plans are to cull crows etc and see whether songbirds increase in numbers - it is possible that they will. But if they don't then Songbird Survival does not have a good record of taking on board the results of research which they have funded.
Liddle quotes the BTO very revealingly. The BTO, a politically neutral research body, said Songbird Survival had asked it to carry out research into “a supposed link between high predator numbers and a decline in songbirds. We discovered that there is pretty much no link whatsoever, and as a consequence they rejected our research”.
Let's be clear, it is interesting that Songbird Survival appears to have close links to the shooting community and previous blogs here have highlighted that. But shooting and nature conservation can rub along together most of the time. We have no beef with legitimate field sports and we work closely with organisations who have shooting interests. Not all conservationists are good people - the same goes for shooters. But where vocal or prominent Songbird Survival supporters have shooting interests and are anti-raptor then it seems fair to question whether it is love of corn buntings (even if one doesn't know what they look like) or love of pheasant bags that is the motivation for their pronouncements.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Do you ever tell the story of how many curlews there were at Lake Vyrnwy when you took it over, and how many there are now??
Sooty - we too believe that crows and foxes (for example) can affect breeding numbers of some birds - particularly ground-nesting birds such as lapwings and partridges. But I don't think that, for example, linnets are getting clobbered by crows. We even did a report on this subject a few years bacjk which is on our web site somewhere and which was praised by shooting organisations. But there are a few people who both exagerrate the impact of corvids and then move on to raptors all too quickly.
essex peasant - well, you'll have to take that up with Rod Liddle then! And as far as the RSPB is concerned then the clue is in the name - our pronouncements on the Farmland Bird Index are because we are quite keen on birds. And as you know, we run a competition for wildlife-friendly farming so we are keen on farmers too.
Bob Philpott- the GWCT work at Loddington is interesting and infgormative. We have, actually, worked with GWCT to compare their results at Loddington with our result at Hope Farm. I won't disclose the results although I have seen them. But I am keen for them to emerge as soon as possible. There is one story from the two studies which I do tell occasionally: Loddington started with a few grey partridges and lost them despite all that predator control whereas Hope Farm started with no grey partrtidges and now has some despite doing no predator control. This is an anecdote rather than anything more important but it is an anecdote with some resonance.
davidbinos - thank you.
StackyardGreen - thank you. I don't know whether a study has actually been done which demonstrates that habitat on shooting estates in lowland Britain is better than on non-shooting estates. But I can easily believe that it is true as many shooting estates do provide great habitat for wildlife through their efforts for partridges and pheasants. What you suggest is quite likely to be true but I can't swear to it. Nowadays many non-shooting farms can get paid to put in wild bird cover through agri-environment schemes which of course is a very good thing.
redkite - interesting points.
Sooty - I've never heard that before - interesting story.
Research is fine as long it has not already got its findings before the work has actually started like so many wind farm environmental assessments. It is assumed that this research will show damage as that is what it is intended. The workers doing the research will also be hand picked to do the work. May be the ss should have got the University of East Anglia to do the work so you could end up with a graph looking like a 'hockey stick'.
It is depressing how many people not directly involved with science always think they know best despite the results from several good quality predator research projects done in good faith. The decline in song birds has been linked time and time again with the decline in habitat, including the decline in insect and wild flower populations. Pheasants are well known to be great predators of insects so depressing the insect populations especially for example butterflies. So I wonder if Song Bird Survivals next project after their cull of crows will be to get rid of all the pheasants and to see whether the insect population and hence song birds increase in number as a result? I hope Song Bird Survival can tell the difference between crows, rooks and jackdaws but the results of that test above do not give me much confidence.
redkite
Sounds a bit complicated Bob but think I am in general agreement,might be interesting but on the farm Magpies cleverly worked out that if they bounced up and down on the asbestos barn roof they could frighten House Sparrow chicks out of nest where they could get to them.Now I am not saying that is reason for decline in Sparrows but it does not help when a species is in decline for other reasons,in this case seems to be unknown ones.