Early reports indicate that only one pair is showing signs of nesting in England. If this situation continues it will be the worst year for Hen Harriers since they recolonised England, following extinction in the late nineteenth century.

Worryingly, there are currently no birds attempting to nest in the Bowland Fells, in Lancashire – the bird’s only stronghold in England in recent decades.

Martin Harper, the RSPB’s Conservation Director, said: ‘The Hen Harrier is noted for its wonderful rollercoaster display flight, but this bird’s population in England is also on an extreme rollercoaster ride itself. After recolonising England, the bird is now perilously close to being wiped out in England, again, as a result of decades of persecution.’

The RSPB’s Dr Andre Farrar monitored Hen Harriers in the 1980s. Commenting on the situation today, he said: ‘When I started monitoring Hen Harriers, I had no idea that 2012 would be so bleak for them. When I started, the harriers were just establishing themselves in England after Victorian intolerance and extermination. Bowland has been their stronghold for decades – nesting attempts in other parts of England are infrequent and inconsistent. There are just too few of them in the English uplands.’

Andrew Gouldstone is a conservation manager with the RSPB in Lancashire. Commenting on the Hen Harrier’s plight, he said: ‘The sight of Hen Harriers is one of the joys of spending time in the hills of Bowland. The RSPB has been working with its partners for over three decades to safeguard Hen Harrier nests here. Bowland is still a safe place for Hen Harriers but protecting the birds away from their breeding grounds is very difficult and we may be about to lose them as a result.’

Government-commissioned, independent research has shown that the English uplands could support more than 300 pairs of Hen Harriers. The authors conclude that persecution associated with the practice of driven grouse shooting, is to blame for the harrier’s plight.

The Government has, via the England Biodiversity Strategy, committed to prevent human-induced extinctions of threatened species by 2020. The extinction of the Hen Harrier as a breeding species, for a second time, looks unavoidable unless an emergency recovery programme is put in place and there is a rapid and sustained reduction in persecution of these birds.

Martin Harper added: ‘Defra ministers have one chance to avoid breaking a promise. We’re doing everything we can, but the Government, its conservation and enforcement agencies need to step up to the challenge of securing the future of Hen Harriers in England. The problem of illegal killing is well understood – we now need Government to bring solutions to the table.

The situation for the Hen Harrier has become so dire, that the RSPB has relaunched its Hen Harrier hotline enabling the public to report any sighting of these birds during the breeding season in England.

The Harrier Hotline number is 0845 4600121 (calls charged at local rate). Reports can also be e-mailed to henharriers@rspb.org.uk.  Reports of sightings should include the date and location of sighting, with a six-figure grid reference where possible.

Related Articles

• September 13, 2011 -- Record number of poisoned Golden Eagles
• April 8, 2011 -- Illegal persecution killing Britain’s Hen Harriers
• May 9, 2012 -- More senseless raptor crime in notorious Peak District
• March 13, 2012 -- Breeding success for Orkney Hen Harriers
• January 31, 2012 -- VOTE to strengthen raptor protection in 2012

Common Eider, Roger Riddington

Numbers of seven species of seaduck have dropped by up to 65% in Northern Europe in the last 15 years, including some that winter off the UK’s coasts, particularly Long-tailed Duck and Velvet Scoter. The challenges in monitoring seaduck numbers have meant that the situation had gone largely unnoticed.

The UK coast is a key area for seaducks during winter. Counts at the Moray Firth show that, in less than a decade, Velvet Scoters have gone from several thousand to less than 100 and Long-tailed Ducks have plummeted ten-fold, to fewer than 1,000.

Similar declines were reported from the Baltic Sea at the end of 2011, strongly suggesting that these birds aren’t just going elsewhere, they’re disappearing. While smaller species like Steller’s Eider have attracted concern since 2000, some of the more shocking recent declines have been among common and widespread populations like the Common Eider, which has halved since 1993, and the Long-tailed Duck, which has declined by over 65%.

The causes remain unknown, though the widespread nature of the declines has prompted concern that it is linked to environmental change across much of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions where most of these species breed.

This week Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) conservationists are making the case for Europe’s sea ducks, and calling for international support at a meeting of the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA).

WWT’s Richard Hearn will set out a strategy to AEWA Parties, asking for their input and support in developing international research and conservation action, that includes international surveys, tracking their migration routes and studies in the breeding areas, particularly Russia.

Richard Hearn said: ‘Until very recently the size and location of the flocks of ducks that live in our shallow seas remained a mystery. Often they’re beyond the horizon, out of sight of land, so you need to get up in a plane just to count them. From these surveys we’re finding that numbers are dropping off the edge of a cliff, yet we still barely understand the basics like their migration routes, breeding success or life expectancy in the wild.

‘What is clear is that this problem of rapid decline is widespread. We’re seeing it in the UK and other North Sea regions. And it’s the same story in the Baltic. We don’t want to ignore the proverbial canary in a cage. To address it we need to work at the whole population scale. AEWA has the international framework for doing this, so I’m here to present our plan and appeal for funding and support.’

Seaducks occur in remote areas in both summer and winter, making their numbers and habits difficult to uncover. This hinders attempts to pinpoint the reasons behind these declines although there is no shortage of suggestions, including changes in nutrient levels of marine waters, changes to predator-prey webs in the arctic, over-fishing of mussels, by-catch in fishing nets, oil spills and changes in levels of predation.

WWT and other conservation institutions want a co-ordinated monitoring and research programme, underpinned by AEWA Single Species Action Plans, as required. Without further research and international co-operation, we may miss an opportunity to reverse the decline of these birds.

Related Articles

• December 1, 2011 -- Thousands of seaducks go missing
• May 10, 2012 -- Operation Turtle Dove
• May 3, 2012 -- The increasing Firecrest population in the New Forest, Hampshire
• April 19, 2012 -- Slimbridge gathering for veterans of British birding
• April 5, 2012 -- The Nightingale in Britain: status, ecology and conservation needs

Today at Inverness Sheriff Court, Matthew Gonshaw, from Bow, East London pled guilty to charges of taking 20 wild bird eggs from the Isle of Rum in 2011.

The 49 year old was also caught in possession of egg collecting equipment.

As well as the ASBO, he was ordered to serve two, six month jail terms concurrently.

Speaking at the sentencing, Sheriff Margaret Neilson, said her main concern was to ‘protect the wildlife of Scotland from predators like you’ and described Gonshaw as a ‘wildlife destroyer’.

In June 2011, Gonshaw was arrested on the Isle of Rum after he was caught taking eggs belonging to Manx Shearwater, Meadow Pipit and Willow Warbler.

A warrant for his arrest was issued when he failed to attend an earlier court date relating to the incident.

Commenting on the sentencing, RSPB Scotland Head of Investigations, Ian Thomson, said: ‘We welcome this sentence and the strong comments made by the Sheriff as it sends out a clear message to those who seek to destroy Scotland’s natural heritage. This successful prosecution is the result of hard work by the Northern Constabulary, the National Wildlife Crime Unit, Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland.’

Related Articles

• February 29, 2012 -- First ASBO for wildlife crimes – egg collector banned from visiting Scotland for ten years

Turtle Dove by Andy Hay/RSPB

Conservationists are embarking on an urgent mission to save one of the UK’s most threatened birds from extinction.

Operation Turtle Dove, launched today (Thursday 10th May) by the RSPB, leading sustainable farming specialists Conservation Grade and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust in Norfolk, is a three-year project to reverse the decline of one of England’s best-loved farmland birds.

From The Bible to the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare, the Turtle Dove is well known in literature and folklore as a symbol of love and devotion. But numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years and there are now just nine birds for every 100 there were in the 1970s. Once widespread across much of England and Wales, the species has been lost from many areas. It has remaining strongholds in East Anglia and southeast England. Bruce Fowkes, RSPB South East farmland bird advisor, said: ‘Turtle Doves are really struggling. After many years of decline we are facing the very real possibility of losing this beautiful bird from the UK.

The cause of the population crash is not fully understood. However the birds’ diet consists almost entirely of small seeds from wild plants which grow in crops and changes in farming practices mean these plants are now scarce in our countryside. Bruce continued: ‘This new project will build on a lot of positive work which has already been done by farmers and conservationists. As well as putting in place measures which will bring back some of the wild plants which farmland birds like the turtle dove rely on, we need a better understanding of the causes of this devastating decline.’

The project’s partners will work with farmers in Turtle Dove hotspots to establish plots of seed-rich plants on their land. Scientists from the RSPB will work alongside Conservation Grade’s sustainable farming experts and Pensthorpe’s aviculturalists to measure the impact on the birds’ diet and breeding success. Tim Nevard, executive director of Conservation Grade and a Pensthorpe trustee, said the key to saving the Turtle Dove across Europe, and in England in particular, is to ensure the right nesting and foraging habitats are provided on farms.

Other factors may be contributing to the decline of the Turtle Dove, including illegal hunting in the Mediterranean as the species makes its annual migration, agricultural changes in the African wintering grounds and the avian disease trichomoniasis which is common in pigeons and doves. To help target the project’s research and advice to farmers, and to establish any turtle dove zones around the country, please report your turtle dove sightings at www.operationturtledove.org

Related Articles

• November 30, 2011 -- Turtle Doves lead continued decline in farmland birds
• May 14, 2012 -- Ducks are disappearing from our seas
• May 3, 2012 -- Habitat of territorial Firecrests in north Norfolk
• May 3, 2012 -- The increasing Firecrest population in the New Forest, Hampshire
• April 6, 2012 -- Ducklings signal hope for world’s rarest bird

The crime is the latest in a long-running series of attacks on birds of prey in the Peak District. It leaves only one active Goshawk nest in the entire Derwent Valley, which previously has held six pairs.

Mark Thomas, investigations officer with the RSPB, said: ‘Once again we’re faced with the destruction of birds of prey in Britain’s most visited national park. The sight of Goshawk eggs smashed, only days from hatching, lying on the forest floor is a heart-breaking sight and proves that this bird is being systematically wiped out in the north of the Peak District.

The Derwent Valley has been subject to a catalogue of bird of prey persecution incidents, with the most recent confirmed case being Glen Brown, a gamekeeper convicted of using a caged pigeon to lure birds of prey to a trap. Derbyshire Police have launched an investigation of this crime, which took place on land managed by Severn Trent Water.

Hazel Earnshaw, of Severn Trent Water, said: ‘We are sickened that this protected species has once again been subject to persecution, despite extensive efforts to protect it. The Goshawk should form a natural part of the ecosystem here in the Upper Derwent Valley. We are working closely with the RSPB to protect these birds and to identify the guilty parties.’

Darren Belfield, a sergeant with the Derbyshire Constabulary, said: ‘This is a further instance of senseless destruction and persecution of a protected species. The individuals responsible show no regard for the law or for the conservation of bird of prey species within the Peak District National Park.’

The Derbyshire Constabulary is encouraging anyone with any information relating to this incident to contact the Police immediately on 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Related Articles

• January 24, 2012 -- Derbyshire gamekeeper loses appeal against conviction for attempting to kill birds of prey
• November 10, 2011 -- Who on google earth is killing the world’s fastest bird of prey?
• September 23, 2011 -- More West Country raptor persecution
• April 8, 2011 -- Illegal persecution killing Britain’s Hen Harriers
• May 15, 2012 -- Future of England’s most threatened raptor hanging in the balance

http://www.britishbirds.co.uk/letters/hearing-tests-for-bird-survey-workers

The topic has caused plenty of interest among readers, and the responses received include the following. Leave a comment if you agree – or disagree!

I have used an internet-based test (see http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/can-you-hear-this-hearing-test/) to ‘rate’ my hearing – which, like Richard’s, has deteriorated recently to the extent that I now wonder how much I’m missing! A couple of years ago I became conscious that I could hear cicadas through one ear but not the other. A visit to my GP and then a specialist concluded that, as far as they were concerned, my hearing was fine… but of course their tests were only concerned with my being able to hear what humans were saying, not other species.

According to the online test, I can hear up to 10kHz in my right ear – so locating high-pitched calls is a problem for me, even if I can hear them! I can’t hear 12kHz in either ear. (I do, therefore, have a reasonable excuse for selective deafness when my wife complains I haven’t taken any notice of her!)

Can I suggest a couple of ideas? BBS volunteers could be asked to give their age with their annual returns, or at least this information gathered as a one-off survey. Volunteers could also be asked to check their hearing (using the link above, or similar online test) and the data from these tests could then be analysed, together with age data, to look for any effects on numbers of birds of species with high-pitched calls they detected in the most recent year’s dataset. It would also be possible to look for any reductions in numbers of those species reported by surveyors who have contributed to BBS over a period of time. It may then prove possible, and maybe necessary, to apply correction factors to BBS indices. I think that this is just as pertinent as the analysis undertaken to test for effects of transect familiarity.

Dave Smallshire (aged 60 and starting to feel it), 8 Twindle Beer, Chudleigh, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ13 0JP; e-mail davesmalls@btinternet.com

I have been profoundly deaf for many years, something caused initially by noise exposure and now exacerbated by ageing. When I was in Uganda a few years ago, our South African guide suggested I should try a gadget called the SongFinder (http://www.nselec.com). This works by shifting the frequency of sound by a half, a quarter or a third, thereby bringing most bird songs and calls within the threshold of my remaining hearing. The birds, of course, sound different and you have to start learning them all over again, though many are easily identifiable by their rhythm alone, such as Common Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita or Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naevia. When I first started to use the SongFinder, I was amazed to be surrounded by (unidentifiable) bird song after years of almost totally silent walks. It has transformed my birding, though it is still a challenge to identify some of the sounds such as the enormous variety of Great Parus major and Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus calls. Suggested rewording:’ I can now identify most of the common birds by song, though, because I am totally deaf in one ear, I cannot localise them; but if I had hearing in both ears,I would be able to localise the sounds with SongFinder because the microphones are located on each headphone.

Robin Cox, Linden House, Long Lane, Fowlmere, Royston, Cambridgeshire SG8 7TG; e-mail erithacus@uwclub.net

I was interested to read the correspondence on this subject in BB. It did not, however, mention the fact that women normally retain their high-register hearing much longer than men. If the number of women doing BBS and other survey work is increasing (is there any evidence?), this could cancel out the bias of the elderly male surveyors who are missng out on Goldcrests Regulus regulus.

Rowena Quantrill, 36 Newtown, Bradford on Avon BA15 1NF; e-mail rowena.quantrill@btinternet.com

Richard Porter, younger than me, now hears only half the number of birds that he used to. I have the same problem, but bypass it by using a SONG FINDER from the USA. This gadget reduces the frequency of high notes by up to four times. Now I can easily hear Common Swifts and the higher notes of warblers, and count many more birds.

Does this ‘ageing’ affect BBS surveys? I have in front of me the Cumbria Bird Atlas (2002) and the Norfolk Bird Atlas (2011). The latter lists about 900,000 breeding pairs of birds while the Cumbrian figure is about 2.7 million pairs. Cumbria is slightly larger than Norfolk, and has far more Meadow Pipits and Willow Warblers, but their numbers do not really alter the gap. Cumbria appears to have two or three times as many Blackbirds, Robins, Dunnocks and Wrens.

Could it be that Cumbria’s birders are younger than those in Norfolk and so hear far more birds? I doubt it. Cumbria’s farmland is for cattle and sheep, Norfolk mostly arable. There is not much difference in tree cover of length of hedgerows. Is the difference really the result of how BBS surveys are extrapolated? I expect so.

Julian Taylor, 4 High Green, Sandford, Appleby-in-Westmorland CA16 6NR

And finally… Richard Mabey, in his book Nature Cure, sums it all up so eloquently. The following is reproduced with his permission. Did Auric come before Songfinder?

…The frustration and sense of loss – how many more springs had I got left? – drove me into a rare bout of technological busyness. I could do something about my attention, but for my hearing I needed help, some clever escape route out of my personal silent spring. I went to see my audiologist, who denied there was anything superior to my hearing aid. I thought of the ear-trumpet that was among Gilbert White’s effects, but felt such a thing might be a tad ostentatious for the Fens. Then David Cobham did some lateral thinking and suggested I went to a detective agency, but they informed me that portable devices for tuning in to distant sounds were just film-makers’ fiction. So it was down to me, and handful of specialist electrical shops, and the end result was a combination of a high-quality directional microphone, a digital voice recorder and a pair of Walkman headphones. I called it Auric. The first time I took it out was a revelation: the birds I thought might be stretched out between Baghdad and the Alps seemed to be singing exultantly only a few feet away. I heard properly, for the first time since my thirties, the little grace notes in Reed Warblers’ songs, the scratching of Whitethroats, and that thin, triumphant see-saw of the Chiffchaff. And, paying for that artificial recapturing of youthful senses, I also heard, enormously amplified, the shattering roar of distant aircraft and the hum of traffic. It was I felt, a fair swap, since these are the realities of the world to which our migrants return. But they’d made it back to where they belonged, and back, too, inside my head…

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Common Snipe, Roger Riddington

The ongoing floods are having a catastrophic impact on some of Britain’s already-threatened wildlife, says the RSPB.

Several of the Society’s 211 nature reserves have suffered severe flooding, including the internationally-important Ouse Washes in East Anglia. The reserve, which is home to the largest concentration of nesting wading birds in lowland England, is now two metres under water. The rising flood waters have drowned the nests and breeding attempts of an estimated 600 waders, including 37 per of the lowland Common Snipe population of England and Wales. Other waders affected include large numbers of Common Redshank, Northern Lapwing and, most importantly of all, internationally-important Black-tailed Godwits.

Jon Reeves is the RSPB’s Ouse Washes site manager. He said: ‘Following centuries of land drainage across the UK, The Ouse Washes is now the most important stronghold for these birds, after they have been largely forced out of other sites. Literally, we have all our eggs in one basket and we’ve lost them. It’s devastating to watch the nests succumb to the rising waters without being able to do anything to prevent it.’

The Ouse Washes is used by the Environment Agency as part of the flood relief system for the River Great Ouse, which flows from Northamptonshire, through Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire to the sea, near Kings Lynn, in Norfolk. In summer, the Ouse Washes nature reserve is grazed by cattle to create the ideal conditions for ground-nesting birds. The RSPB manages the site to keep the water levels at an optimum height for wading birds to create damp grassland and wet features without flooding. However, the Environment Agency has to open sluices to allow water onto the washes to prevent flooding elsewhere in the 150-mile catchment of The Great River Ouse. Jon Reeves added: ‘The Environment Agency is working hard to identify replacement land for the birds to nest to take the pressure off the Ouse Washes. Until this replacement land is in place, the birds will continue to face an uncertain future.’

Other reserves to have suffered flooding include Minsmere, on the Suffolk coast, where Avocet and Black-headed Gull nests have been washed away. Fairburn Ings, in Yorkshire, and Pulborough Brooks, in Sussex, have also been affected. Waterbird nests, including waders, such as Lapwing, have been destroyed at these two sites.

However, the nest belonging to a pair of Common Coots at Fairburn Ings enjoyed a miraculous escape, when the nest with eggs was washed away. The nest, like a miniature raft, floated to a new location about 30 m away, where the eggs were able to hatch.

Some RSPB nature reserves are reporting better news as the heavy rainfall is helping providing much-needed water to those sites striving to combat the ongoing drought.

Related Articles

• May 9, 2012 -- More senseless raptor crime in notorious Peak District
• January 4, 2012 -- Seychelles project: an ‘epic tale’ of global conservation
• December 14, 2011 -- RSPB officers help Bulgarian police in wildlife crime raid
• November 30, 2011 -- Turtle Doves lead continued decline in farmland birds
• November 16, 2011 -- Has England lost its appetite for defending our seas?

Richard Meinertzhagen

Andrew H. J. Harrop, J. Martin Collinson and Tim Melling

Abstract There is a tendency to see examples of fraud in ornithology as rare aberrations. This paper outlines some known and suspected historical examples of fraud, and argues that fraud of one kind or another has occurred more or less consistently, if uncommonly, in ornithology. Although most of the examples discussed are from Britain, it is likely that similar examples could be found in the archives of many nations. It is also likely that small-scale fraud continues today and is something that the ornithological community should be aware of. In particular, this has implications for the level of proof required by those assessing records of rarities.

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Second-winter Iceland Gull, Faroe Islands, by Silas Olofson

Rob Fray, Mike Pennington, Roger Riddington, Eric Meek, Paul Higson, Alastair Forsyth, Alan Leitch, Martin Scott, Tony Marr, Tristan ap Rheinallt and Silas Olofson

Abstract An unprecedented influx of Iceland Gulls into northern Britain occurred during January and February 2012. That influx is described here, with particular attention to the numbers involved, the age composition of the birds and the occurrence of Kumlien’s Gulls. The scale of the influx into Britain & Ireland was dwarfed by that which occurred in the Faroe Islands, and a comparable account for that archipelago is included here.

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A north Norfolk Firecrest territory, by Chris Mason

Christopher F. Mason

Abstract The habitat occupied by territorial Firecrests in north Norfolk was investigated. A total of 63 territories were discovered in three breeding seasons between 2008 and 2011. The species of trees and shrubs found in each territory were recorded and territories assigned to one of eight habitat groups, ranging from predominantly deciduous to primarily coniferous, though all contained at least some evergreen cover. Exotic conifers were included in all of the territories occupied in more than one year. The conservation implications are discussed.

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Related Articles

• May 10, 2012 -- Operation Turtle Dove
• May 3, 2012 -- The increasing Firecrest population in the New Forest, Hampshire
• April 6, 2012 -- Ducklings signal hope for world’s rarest bird
• April 5, 2012 -- The Nightingale in Britain: status, ecology and conservation needs
• April 5, 2012 -- Spotted Crakes breeding in Britain and Ireland: a history and evaluation of current status