The Bird Thread

We found this Red Kite in the woods at work. Still warm, shot in the back.
Someone had baited it and lay in wait.
The finger is pointing at the adjacent pheasant shooting business.

1 Attachment

So meaningless. They take a marginal number of pheasants anyway.

Rotten bastards. Pissing in the wind too judging by how many we saw on a trip south

Disgusting

The whole pheasant shooting industry is a stain on this country. 45 million birds released into the wild each year, solely for the elite to blow apart with expensive shotguns. Cunts.

Not really an art is it? Using supersonic projectiles to cut birds out of the air.

Yeah it's horrible. There is a lot of shooting in the woods near me.

In other news, it's all kicking off down the local marshes as a Glossy Ibis was spotted. (Not my blog).

https://tomwildlife.wordpress.com/2022/01/18/glossy-ibis-at-farlington-marshes-hants/

It’s a massive problem, so many people often in positions of power and influence get pheasant shooting as their only time in the countryside. What they get told by the pheasant shooting business has a significant impact on countryside policy.
And of course pheasants utterly devastate the fauna of the land where they’re released.
The estate I work in has no shooting, but the whole site teems with them from the neighbouring estate, so the effort put in to increase biodiversity is hampered, to put it mildly.
We think someone from that estate came and hid in the woods for a while with a gun and waited till one of the countless kites came within range.

Do kites even hunt pheasant, I thought they were mainly carrion eaters?

Where I live there are loads of kites and even more pheasants, I am in the middle of a massive shooting estate in the Chilterns. I have never heard of kites being seen as a menace to the pheasants. I would suggest the shooting above is just some lone arsehole who fancied shooting a big bird of prey

Hard to say what the current state of play is for definite, it's either "the tip of the iceberg" or "just bad apples". Interesting article about it

https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2015/07/unfair-game-why-are-britain-s-birds-prey-being-killed

Interesting article, thanks. I can only speak for my personal experience and there are so many pheasants and kites here (I could walk out my door and see probably dozens of each on a quick walk round the fields), I find it hard to believe that the kites are impacting the pheasants or the gamekeepers are impacting the kites. I am well able to believe this isn't the case in other areas though.

“And of course pheasants utterly devastate the fauna of the land where they’re released.”

so all the habitat changes (set aside strips cover retention (brambles/thicker woodland but with rides cut through for new growth and crops planted specifically for ground cover) etc offer no benefit for wildlife?
would rather see that than all the hedges ripped out to look like lincolnshire.

the countryside is a business, if making some of it a playground for game shooting helps retain some semblance of bucolic countryside rather than a featureless agribusiness then i’m all for it.

i would imagine sheep and overgrazing have done far more environmental damage than pheasant shooting.

This is a environmentalism v conservationism debate. Conservationism had its merits, but its always a conspicuously convenient position, when it comes to the abuse of animals.

For what its worth - I don't believe the countryside needs to include bloodsport business in 2022.

This is coming from someone who grew up around and taking part in blood sports.

"For what its worth - I don't believe the countryside needs to include bloodsport business in 2022.

This is coming from someone who grew up around and taking part in blood sports.”

as did I, it’s what gave me an interest in wildlife in the first place, though i disagree mainly because of money, it’s all about the money.
Nobody is going to maintain the millions of acres without the money.

the British countryside has been managed to within an inch of life for hundreds of years, there is a tiny percentage of natural habitat left (heathland) the rest has had our influence for better or worse. mostly worse.
(The Nature of the English Landscape by W.G. Hosking is a good grounding in the subject)

it’s actually watercourses and still water that needs the most attention, funny how the money from prime chalk stream trout or salmon fishing is driving that...

I think there are other ways to generate money, without killing stuff for fun.

And the concept of maintenance is a conservation thing, which I'm not keen on either.

I didn’t say they offered no benefit to wildlife. Releasing millions of birds into the wild does, they are predatory birds. All those twee little cover strips house very few nesting birds. All small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and larger invertebrates are potential pheasant food.
The impact of predation by the birds added to the disturbance by shooters, the annihilation of potential pheasant predators, and the shooting of non target species all have a negative impact that is under researched and under regulated.
In addition the birds have a significant negative impact on the flora, especially in woodland, further eroding the ecosystem. Add in the cultural impact that leads to an assumption even on cycling fora that they must be a good thing, and you begin to realise that releasing up to 60 million pheasants into our countryside isn’t really doing any good.

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1478262037864226819

At risk of posting something incredibly on-topic

My bird AND my bike

1 Attachment

Spotted a Black Cap on the feeder today - a new one for my garden

Da fuk

Wow. Peregrine Lanner hybrid?

Grainy zoomed pic of a LTT, we're letting the rats thrive so we can enjoy garden birds visiting once again.

1 Attachment

Close! Saker cross

Maybe a stupid question, is it a working bird or just a pet?