Coverage of the Bribery Act reminded me of the only time I have put 'bribe' on my expense claim. I was travelling to Ghana to see our partner the Ghana Wildlife Society, with whom we were working on the conservation of the beautiful roseate tern.
I arrived at Accra airport and was going through the various checks of passport, visa, luggage etc when one official asked about the box I had under my arm. I told him it was full of badges with pictures of roseate terns, and he asked how many badges there were. I didn't have a clue and said so. So the official suggested that we should count them all - unless we could agree that there were 4000 and that therefore I pay the appropriate 'badge tax'. The 'badge tax' was paid and it later appeared under 'bribe' on my expenses - a sum of about £1.
Lest that little story should give the wrong impression - I loved Ghana and Ghanaians. I found it an immensely friendly country full of lovely people, and that seems to be the view of many migrant birds which spend our winter in Ghana and neighbouring countries and are now heading back to the UK and Europe for the summer.
Many migrant species across Europe are declining in numbers and the RSPB and the BTO are working together and separately to look at the reasons behind these declines at both ends of their migration routes. The joint Migrants in Africa project has taken our staff to Ghana and Burkina Faso to find which areas are used by which migrant species. Sounds easy put like that, but I remember that we found it difficult enough locating roseate terns along the coast when we knew from ringing recoveries where they occurred - locating nightingales, wood warblers and other 'European' migrants amongst a host of African species in sometimes thick vegetation when they are not bursting into song is a mammoth task. But I am glad to report that as we come to the end of the second winter, much progress has been made which bodes well for the future.
Earlier this month, the team netted a garden warbler which had been ringed in Suffolk last August - at Hollesly on 25 August. Whether this bird is a 'UK bird' or had started its migration somewhere else in Europe we do not know. But now we do know that it was Nsuatre in central Ghana on 8 March.
Last year I had a rather early garden warbler at Stanwick Lakes in east Northants on 10 April - I would normally expect them to arrive about 10 days later. But whenever I hear my first garden warbler this year I can smile because we now know just a little bit more about this species and other trans-Saharan migrants.
trimbush - perhaps. But not in response to a blog about Ghana and garden warblers.
neil sumner, redkite and nightjar - many thanks!
gert - indeed
As far as I know the RSPB has applied no science whatsoever on this matter - it may have read some reports and thought about it - but it ain't done science.
No doubt Mark will correct me here if it has.
The foot-and-mouth outbreak prevented routine testing of bovine TB and infected cattle were not able to identified and removed."
In 2006 Private Eye (Muckspreader) wrote:
"... as the vets have now comprehensively exposed, the Krebs trials were only a pseudo-scientific charade, never designed to work. Even Defra admits that the percentage of badgers culled was sometimes as low as 20 percent. .. the tragedy rolls on: for farmers, for cattle, for taxpayers, and for all those sick badgers, condemned to a lingering death."
Later he writes
“Culling has eliminated bovine TB in 23 of the EU's 25 countries, leaving only Britain and Ireland out in the cold.”
Perhaps Mark can tell us all precisely when (and why) the RSPB decided to come out against culling - incidentally fulfilling a promise he made to us all to blog on his and the RSPB's reasoned views on bTB.
Perhaps he will do this before he leaves?
I agree very strongly with Redkite. On both badgers and TB and farmland birds the real - not selective non-science - simply doesn't support views that some people hold very passionately. Of course, in a country with free speech they are entitled to question RSPB's views - as I am equally entitled to look at both sides of the argument and come to the conclusion that RSPB is applying the best science in a balanced and honest way.
Hi Neil S - thanks for taking the trouble to blog - Of course you all mean well - as does both Mark and indeed the RSPB - but some some things the organisation says are not scientifically sound / science-based and that detracts considerably from the things it does get right My blog entry above was in response to redkite's outrageous claim about the RSPB's 'sound science' - a claim which in my view must always be challenged - until it adopts science-driven policies on subjects it knows well enough to do so!
Cheers
Thanks Mark, and you others on the tips for telling the differences in the songs of Blackcap and Garden Warbler.