The Feather Fanatic

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Shetland 2014 - Day 5 - Blues and Reds

The weather had settled down a little bit in the morning so we chose to get down to Hoswick and wait on news for the Rubythroat as we felt the crowds might have dispersed and it would be great to see it again if it was there.

I had a wander round to the Orca Inn picking out a Yellow-browed Warbler, a couple of Blackcap and a Great Tit in the surrounding sycamores. We carried on to Cliff View Cottage, where the Eastern Olivaceous Warbler had been the previous October and as I got round the corner something flicked out of the garden, hovered briefly and dropped into the dog roses on the edge of the garden. I called Al and Sean around and as they appeared the bird shot out and flew straight past me, dropping into a building site across the field.... The rusty-red on the sides of the tail were obvious and all of us shouted Bluethroat at the same time. We went over to the building site to try and relocate it, but after half an hour of searching for it, the bird was nowhere to be seen.

We walked around to the other side of the garden where we met Phil and Mark, who had just had what they thought was probably a Barred Warbler disappear into cover and we watched a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers before deciding to give the Rubythroat another go.

As we arrived, there was only a small crowd of around 15 birders gathered at the end of the drive where the Rubythroat had relocated to so I lay down on the grass at the side of the crowd and waited. It didn;t take long for the Rubythroat to appear, wandering across the drive and along the edge close to the vegetation, but it showed wonderfully well... much much better than when we'd seen it a couple of days ago... it really was quite special sharing such a magical bird with such a small crowd and every 20 minutes or so the bird would show on the path after vanishing on its circuit of the garden, one time coming to within 10 foot of us - catching us all off guard and no-one being able to get a shot of it! I was pretty pleased with what I managed to get from that session though and I stayed for a little while longer whilst the rest of the guys went to check Channerwick.

Siberian Rubythroat (Luscinia calliope), Levenwick, Mainland

After they came back to pick me up we moved on to the other side of the island to check out Geosetter, a few Yellow-browed Warblers (not much of a surprise there then!) and a showy Pied Flycatcher were the best we could manage there.

Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), Geosetter, Mainland

We made our way back towards Lerwick and the Pallid Harrier was reported again back at Tingwall, so Al and I stayed in the van as we dropped the rest off and headed down to try and find it again. We had no luck with the harrier, but while we were there Chris Rodger arrived with the Shetland Nature tour group and as we were chatting, a couple of guys appeared saying they'd just found a Hornemanns Arctic Repoll by the pumping station in Veensgarth. As we could see the plantation from where we were stood, Al and I decided we'd go and have a look. We got there with no sign, a Pied Flycatcher was flicking through the back of the plantation, so we moved slightly round the corner and picked up a couple of Redpoll moving through the back. We kept scanning and the white blob finally flew in and settled on a low branch of one of the trees at the front for a minute before flying through the back to feed on the thistles behind the trees giving decent but obscured views. Not the best views of Hornemanns I'd ever had, but an obvious Arctic Redpoll all the same!

We went back to the house and told the rest of the group we'd jammed onto the Hornemann's to find out that Mark needed it for a lifer! At least we knew what the plan for the morning was going to be then!

Shetland 2014 - Day 4 - Wild, wet and windy, a Pallid Harrier and the Golden Godwit!

The morning started pretty late due to a combination of awful weather (and a few aching heads!)... but news of a Rosy Starling up the road at Breiwick got us moving and out of the house. Unfortunately the bird must have moved on as we couldn't relocate it and so feeling pretty damp and miserable we made our way back to the house for a cup of tea.... only for Dan Pointon to call Al to tell us he'd just relocated the Pallid Harrier flying towards Tingwall Airport just up the road from Gott.... I needed this as a lifer, so we dropped Al off and set back out to look for the harrier.

We drove down to the airport expecting to find Dan watching the bird flying over the airfield itself, but upon arrival there was no-one around.... we'd got mixed messages from Al and after driving part-way to Gott, we decided to get some height and scan for the bird (without much hope!).... We parked up in a car park on the main road overlooking the airfield and almost as soon as I stepped out to scan the fenceline on the other side of the valley, I picked it out sat on one of the fenceposts around 6-700 metres away. We got the scopes out to confirm it was the bird, then put the news out.... it was obviously quite a quiet day as within 10-15 minutes there was a bit of a crowd starting to form in the car-park.... We also found out that the Rubythroat hadn't been seen all morning (which explained why there was such a crowd for the Pallid), thankfully for the many who had travelled up overnight to twitch the Rubythroat it was relocated later on a little further down the road in the same garden where we'd seen the Pechora Pipit last year!

Phone-scoped shot of the Pallid Harrier (Circus macrourus), Tingwall, Mainland

The weather was still awful, so we decided to go back to the house and take it easy and get ready for the Shetland Bird Club evening that was being run by Rebecca Nason later that evening at Sumburgh Head.

As we made our way down to the lighthouse the weather cleared up providing us with a stunning sunset as we arrived.

Sumburgh Sunset

We chatted to Rebecca and her partner Phil for a while until the main event got underway.... a Mystery Bird ID Quiz.... 50 photos taken by Rebecca of birds taken on Shetland... it was tricky, with a summer-plumaged male Pine Bunting causing us all to become unstuck and several birds in the hand giving the ringers amongst us some headaches, but by the end the totals were added up and amazingly I had won! A total off 44 out of 50 gave me the chance to hold the 'Golden Godwit' for 5 minutes (as it couldn't be taken away from Sumburgh for 'security purposes'), along with being presented with a wad of bird reports and a bottle of Famous Grouse! Suitably embarrassed (although a little proud it has to be said) after having my photo taken to document my dorkishness and we were heading back to the house ready for another day of searching for the big one!

Shetland 2014 - Day 3 - A Ruby in the dark

We woke up to the wind howling outside and chose to head north to check out the plantation at Voe as well as the gardens in Lower Voe... We wandered around with not a great deal to show for our efforts other than a single Pied Flycatcher, a couple of Yellow-browed Warbler and a very brief Barred Warbler that only a couple of us saw. We consoled ourselves by visiting the pie shop in Voe and cleaned them out with a fine selection to keep us going for the day!

Phil after raiding the pie shop in Voe

We then headed on to Kergord with pretty much the same results... just a couple of Yellow-broweds but I did flush a Woodcock from one of the ditches and a Merlin shot over the woods mobbing a Raven. Our next port of call was Eswick where a couple of Little Buntings had been showing well the day before.... We got brief views of the first, in a cabbage field around 1 mile from Eswick, and only managed to hear the other 'ticking' away in the plantation in Eswick itself, the wind was obviously keeping it tucked away within the shelter of the trees. We also saw a Great Northern Diver in the bay and a performing 'Mealy' Redpoll. We gave up trying to see the Little Bunting there and opted to go back to the cabbage field, this one showed again briefly before darting back into the cover crop, we did get some cracking views of some of the Brambling there too though.

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla), Eswick, Mainland

It was only moments later when Phil started showing Mark how to age 1st-winter male Blackbirds when things got a little bit crazy as Al shouted for us to ''Get in the f@#*ing car.... Pointons got a Rubythroat at Levenwick!''..... Mother. Of. God..... We were half an hour away...... It was 3:50pm.... enough light for a while at least.... Al put his foot down. The closer we got to Levenwick, the quieter and the more tense the car got.... this was a magical bird, one of the holy grails of 'sibes'.... This bird was only the 12th record of this über-rare beast in Britain, the vast majority coming from this northern archipelago, and to make it even better it was a male.... complete with a full ruby-red throat.... Our nerves were tingling as we came into view of the crowd around the tiny garden filled with fuschia bushes.... Phil had driven as he'd already twitched the Gulberwick bird in 2011 and so, as we pulled up next to the garden, the rest of us piled out while he tried to find somewhere to park. Finding somewhere to view was an absolute nightmare.... There were very limited spaces where the area it was darting in between bushes could be watched and there were already banks of people there waiting.

Crowd at the Rubythroat twitch (that's me just to the right of the light blue coat!) (Pic by David Gray)

I got a brief glimpse of it scurrying underneath a bush, but nothing to say more than it was small and brown... no look at its face or throat.... For well over another hour and a half it was the same story.... a flick of the bird and too much noise from the crowd forcing it back into the shadows in moments..... it was immensely frustrating.... Eventually people realised that if they didn't shout or talk loudly and kept silent the bird would prove a bit less secretive and it wasn't long before it hopped out in full view for a couple of seconds.... unfortunately I was too far back to see it, but it did at least mean that most of the people at the front began to leave as they'd seen it well enough.... So I moved to the front..... I was now in a perfect place if it came out again so I got my camera ready, and hoped the light held enough to get a record shot... After a tense wait the bird appeared behind the bush, I got my bins on it and it ran across the small gap that was on it's circuit.... I saw it fully for the first time and the leap of joy and excitement that I felt inside was incredible.... WHAT. A. BIRD!! I lifted my camera up just in case it came out into the open and just as I was setting the ISO it popped out into view of the viewfinder, sat there face on!! I froze, almost totally forgetting to click the shutter, but thankfully I remembered just in the nick of time before it dashed off back into the undergrowth.

SIBERIAN RUBYTHROAT (Luscinia calliope), Levenwick, Mainland

The adrenaline surged through me and I was literally shaking as I walked away from the front of the crowd and saw Phil stood at the back.... He grinned as he saw me and after a congratulatory handshake we went to find the others.... By now all of us apart from Al had had decent views, so I grabbed him and showed him to the place where we'd just seen it.... eventually he got better views and we all found Dan Pointon to shake his hand and congratulate him on finding a staggeringly awesome bird.

No-one spoke that much on the journey back to Lerwick.... the feeling of utter contentment and slight disbelief of what had just happened was overwhelming and nothing really needed to be said for the time being!

That night we went into Lerwick to have a celebratory drink.... but one turned into two, two turned into a Jager-bomb, then a Jager-bomb turned into several..... The result of this was Al showing his moves to the Stone Roses, plenty of games of pool, Mark proving his ability to hold two fingers up (quite a lot), many repetitions of The Kaiserchiefs 'Ruby, Ruby, Ruby' and some very merry and rosy faces by the end of the night!

Yes, Mark is singing Ruby, Ruby, Ruby........

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Shetland 2014 - Day 2 - Unst

After a bit of a celebration after seeing two stonking rares the night before, we all awoke a little bleary-eyed but ready for the next days birding... we had thought about it the day before and all agreed that Unst would be the destination for the day as Al and Sean both needed the 'Eastern' Subalpine Warbler at Baltasound and Mark and I needed the Rustic Bunting at Halligarth (that had been there since August!).

Thankfully due to a change in ferry timings, the mad dash across Yell wasn't as mental as it could have been and also gave us the opportunity to have a quick look for the female King Eider that had been hanging around with a flock of Common Eider in Basta Voe.

Arriving at the site where the flock of Eider could be seen we scoped through the flock, but we struggled for a time picking the bird out.... that was until Dan Pointon came over and pointed out it was the one sitting on a bouy with its back to us. Looking at it for a while I was quite surprised how grey the bird was.... I always thought females were a bright gingery colour, and after a bit of discussion in the mini-bus on the way to the Unst ferry, we concluded that it could well be a 1st-winter female.


1st-winter? female King Eider (Somateria spectabilis), Basta Voe, Yell

Getting off the ferry on Unst we made our way to Baltasound to look for the 'Eastern' Subalpine Warbler. We found the road it was frequenting and it was Dan again who told us where the bird was seen mostly.... a single sycamore in the last garden in the row of houses. There was no sign of the bird for a while until someone said they'd found it in a small bush around the corner from the row of gardens... no sooner had we got half way to it the bird flew back towards the gardens it had been favouring and we lost it behind the houses. A quick run back to where we were and a good scan of the gardens proved fruitless but we knew the bird was around, so we hung on a while waiting for it to re-appear again. Sean and I went back down to the single sycamore and as we got there I saw a bird fly in and disappear amongst the leaves. We looked into the tree unable to see anything moving until I moved to get a different angle and there, picking insects from the underside of the leaves, was the 'Eastern' Subalp. I called everyone over and we got great views as it crept through the branches, often hanging upside-down searching for invertebrates to eat.

'Eastern' Subalpine Warbler (Sylvia cantillans albistriata), Baltasound, Unst

After a little while the warbler flew out of the tree again and back round the corner, so we moved on to look for the Rustic Bunting only a few hundred metres away up the road at Halligarth.... This proved to be a bugger to find... I got there a little later than most people and found out that Mark and Phil thought they heard it briefly as they got there, but we searched the area for a good half an hour without any luck. We were beginning to think we were going to move on and try later when, as Mark, Phil and I walked around the front, we heard it 'tic'. Moments later it flew up from the roses in front of us and perched in the top of some sycamores momentarily before dropping into the canopy. We managed to see it a couple more times in flight during the next 45 minutes, but not well enough to photograph unfortunately... at least we'd got to see it and a 3rd lifer for me in just 2 days!

We were then told about a Bluethroat on the far side of the bay at Clingera that had been showing well in the morning, so we went over to have a look... unfortunately we couldn't find it but a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat was good compensation.

We thought we'd try further north at Norwick, as well as looking for the Temminck's Stint that had been spending a while up in Haroldswick. We stopped at the cafe for supplies and met Chris Rodger and the Shetland Nature group he was leading who had been up in the north of Unst for the morning and they told us that the Temminck's hadn't been looking too well the night before and that there wasn't much up at Norwick, so we decided to give the Temminck's a go and then head back to look for the Bluethroat again.

We searched hard for the stint with no sign of it anywhere, but we did get to have a look at the replica Viking boat that was displayed at the side of the road!

Viking longboat at Haroldswick, Unst

We went back to Clingera to have another look for the Bluethroat finding Dan Pointon and the rest of his group already there.... they had seen it a couple of times fleetingly as it had moved around doing a bit of curcuit, so Phil and I had a walk into a little compound where a small stream ran under a bridge next to a grazed field. As I got to the bridge a bird flew out from the corner of the field and as it went past me I saw the rusty sides to the tail and instantly knew it was the Bluethroat. It flew into a patch of trees and I called everyone over to try and refind it. It didn't take long and I found it again searching through the leaf litter under some sycamores. We got great views over the next half an hour as it went around on its curcuit, once coming to land on a branch no more than 20 foot away and also seeing it out in the open in the corner of the field where I'd originally found it.

Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), Clevigarth, Unst

It was getting towards the time to catch the ferry so we made our way back via Lund to have a look for a Marsh Warbler that had been there for a few days in a nettle bed. We got some pretty decent views of the little skulker, but not good enough to get any better pictures than just record shots.

Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris), Lund, Unst

We also stopped along the way to have a scope up of some duck which at first glance looked like a mixed flock of Tufties and Scaup, but turned out to just be Tufties, but we also picked out some Wigeon along the edge of the loch, one of which was a stunning leucistic individual.

Leucistic Wigeon (Anas penelope), Loch of Snarravoe, Unst

After getting the ferries back to the Mainland we got some fish and chips and headed home to recharge for the next day.

Shetland 2014 - Day 1 - A White morning and a Yellow afternoon

So it had come to that time of year again. The end of September had been hotting up with loads of Red-breasted Flycatchers, Barred Warblers, Wrynecks and the odd mega appearing around the country like a Masked Shrike appearing at Spurn, East Yorks. I started off my journey north after going to see Kylie Minogue at the London 02 arena, then driving straight up to Aberdeen overnight to catch the ferry to Lerwick that afternoon.

The weather was beautiful in Aberdeen and the ferry journey was pretty relaxing too - not too choppy and I went up top to have a look for some seabirds as the ship headed north past the Aberdeenshire coast.

Leaving Aberdeen

On the way there were plenty of auk and Gannets offshore, some of the Gannets coming extremely close.

Gannet (Sula bassana) from the ferry.

Further along the coast, just off the coast from Rattray Head, I managed to pick out a few more seabirds including a couple of Arctic Skuas, a few Sooty Shearwaters, a single juv. Pomarine Skua and a single Bonxie. The dark soon settled across the sky and I decided to go and get some sleep ready for the next days birding.... It was going to be a big one!

I woke up at 6am to a cracking fry up on the ship and a tense 3 and a half hours to wait until I could get birding.... the reason it was so tense was because for the previous few days there had been a White's Thrush that had sticking to a garden near Boddam on the mainland, a bird sorely needed by 4 out of the 6 of our group, but I was going to be on Shetland a long time before the rest of them, so I had to get off the ferry, wait a couple of hours for a bus and then walk to the garden to (hopefully) see the bird, as long as it was still there, and then meet the rest of the guys when they arrived and travelled up to see it.

Thankfully my wait eased a bit from a text from Phil when he got to Aberdeen to tell me that the White's was still in the same garden. Eventually after waiting in the rain at the bus-stop, a half an hour journey on the bus and a quarter of an hour walk I found the garden at Loch of Brows where a group of birders were already stood by the walled garden peering into the undergrowth.

As soon as I peered over the wall I could see the White's Thrush was strutting its stuff underneath the branches of a small sycamore, bobbing from side to side keeping its head perfectly still - presumably to tempt worms up to the surface. It was an amazing dance to watch and astonishingly (as so often happens on Shetland), the small group I was watching it with with decided to move on leaving just myself and the White's Thrush alone at the garden.

White's Thrush (Zoothera aurea), Durigath, Mainland

I spent nearly 45 minutes watching the thrush search for food until another group, this time from the excellent Shetland Nature appeared as well as the rest of my group who had finally made it on to Shetland (although minus Marks luggage!!). We carried on watching it until we'd had our fill, opting to come back later for a second look after we'd dropped down to Grutness to look for the Myrtle Warbler.

We pulled up to the car park at Grutness and wandered up to the garden where there was already a crowd waiting for the warbler to appear on its curcuit of the gardens. After only a couple of minutes it flew in to the garden giving a little 'chip chip' contact call.... Although the weather still wasn't great, we got some fantastic views of this Nearctic gem as it went around the garden looking for insects, occasionally perching out in the open showing off it's bright yellow rump.

Myrtle Warbler (Setophaga coronata coronata), Grutness, Mainland

We watched it dash round the gardens a few times until we decided to go back up to the White's Thrush and have a second look. This proved to be a good decision as the bird had moved to the opposite side of the garden under a fuschia bush but often coming right out into the open still performing its little dance. I even managed to grab a few videos which I've edited and uploaded to YouTube. Click the following link to see it:

White's Thrush, Durigarth video

White's Thrush (Zoothera aurea), Durigath, Mainland

We watched it for quite some time until it was time to go to Tescos, get supplies for the week and then head up to the Decca to get unpacked and ready for the next weeks birding!

Quite a staggering start to our yearly Shetland trip.... but we weren't to know that it certainly wasn't going to be downhill from there!

Friday, 6 June 2014

Farming and persecution - why is our countryside being held to ransom? Part One: Raptor Persecution

These have to be the two most contentious subjects when it comes to conservation and quite frankly I've had enough. I've never really been one to speak out, but I feel that I need to over this. Over the last couple of years I have read story after story concerning persecution of our protected species, listened to farmers bleating on about 'how they have it hard' and are the self-proclaimed 'custodians of the countryside' and seen the politicians of this country put nature seemingly in the same category as their expenses - just something to exploit for all it's worth. In the next couple of blog entries I am going to air my views on these topics.

It torments me to think that our beautiful countryside and the wildlife that depends on it has been continually and systematically destroyed until it is clinging on for mere existence.... and for what? Money... pure and simple. It is an utter disgrace.

The most obvious and heartless case of this 'money means more than nature' way of thinking can be seen at many shooting estates across the country, especially in the Scottish borders, where birds of prey are still heavily persecuted illegally to 'protect' shoot stock. Just how these arrogant gamekeepers think that they are in the right taking the law into their own hands is beyond me, they evidently have no idea of what happens in the natural world outside their pens and most couldn't care less anyway - they can't make money out of it.

What does it matter if a Sparrowhawk or a Buzzard takes one or two poults? Most shoots ideally try to shoot only 60% of their total release every year.... so surely it wouldn't matter if predators take a few out. These gamekeepers who are illegally 'controlling' these birds claim that they are losing money for EACH poult lost to a predator and birds of prey are the main cause behind loss of chicks because these raised birds rarely get any disease or die from any other natural causes. This, of course, is fallacy.... any gamekeeper worth his salt will attest to that. In actual fact, BASC (the British Association for Shooting and Conservation) published in their policy on raptors that the mean average across shoots was a loss of between 1-5% of the total release. More are killed by disease, due to unnaturally high population densities, and being hit by cars than the amount taken by birds of prey.

I'm not saying this happens in every single shoot, it doesn't.... there are many gamekeepers who are responsible, care for wildlife and vehemently condemn persecution - I know several both up here in Scotland and down in England, but it seems that they are vastly outnumbered. One of the main problems is the mentality of older gamekeepers and the passing down of uninformed and antiquated views on raptors to the next generations of keepers. There are courses that can be attended at colleges around the country in Gamekeeping, but most learn as apprentices thus keeping these terrible ideals alive.

Something that has always stood out to me is that they are looking to protect a species that isn't even native to our country. The only reason it was introduced was for food (what have the Romans ever done for us!) and even though food is now being mass produced and readily available, Pheasants are still being reared and released just for sport. Approximately 35 million are released every year.... even if 60% are shot each season, that still leaves 14 million extra Pheasants each year roaming free in the countryside. To put that into perspective, the UK's commonest wild bird is the Wren according to the RSPB, and their population is around 8.5 million pairs.... So what impact has the mass release of a non-native bird into our countryside actually done? That in itself is difficult to say but surely there must be some just because of the sheer scale of the release.

The UK's commonest bird, the Wren (Troglobytes troglobytes)

The last couple of years has seen a marked increase in persecution and it's a not-so-surprising co-incidence that there's a Conservative government in charge. In the RSPB report on illegal killing of birds of prey from 1989-2012 the figures speak for themselves. Bearing in mind that the report only covers Scotland, close to 1,000 raptors had been illegally killed in that period including 512 Buzzards, 91 Peregrine, 82 Red Kite, 56 Hen Harrier, 50 Golden Eagle and 7 White-tailed Eagle. These represent only the confirmed deaths and there is no doubt that this is just the very tip of a monsterous iceberg. Between 2003-2012 there were only 33 convictions from 450 confirmed persecutions.... that's a 7.3% conviction rate, and the vast majority were small fines of between £300-£1,500.

The story gets worse in 2013-2014.... not only was Irelands first White-tailed Eagle chick shot and killed, but East Scotlands first White-tailed Eagle chick was also shot and killed. What should have been heralded as a massive success and celebrated from the years of hard work the Sea Eagle projects had undertaken to finally have Eagles breeding successfully was destroyed in moments by mindless blood-thirsty gun-wielding cretins. This year has also seen the largest case of poisoning since records began in Inverness-shire, with 22 raptors having being found so far - 16 Red Kites and 6 Buzzards. This year has also seen an increase of applications to Natural England for licenses to cull Buzzards to protect pheasants after, (astonishingly), one was granted last year.

Poisoned Red Kite (Milvus milvus) - Image taken by Robert Straughan (RSPB)

The success (or lack of) of our breeding raptors highlights how bad persecution is getting in the UK, the main species to show this downward spiral is, of course, the Hen Harrier. In 2012 there was just 1 pair in England, but in 2013 there were NO breeding pairs. NONE. That is immensely depressing considering that the estimated potential population is around 300 pairs. In Scotland there were around 500 pairs, but again the estimated potential is much higher - near 1500-1750 pairs. These birds suffer because they are deemed to be a threat to grouse poults on the moors of shooting estates.... this view is held despite work undertaken to prove that the vast majority of the harriers diet during the breeding season consists chiefly of Meadow Pipits and small mammals.

But again, what does it really matter if the harriers take a few grouse poults? They've got more right to be there than the people who 'own' land just because they've paid out for it.... Ownership is a man-made invention, nature doesn't adhere to it - it just belongs. Until gamekeepers and estate owners understand that and stop pillaging the countryside for their own pockets it seems that conservationists are fighting a losing battle. How can you combat their immense greed by asking them to care about something they can't make money on and feel is actually costing them profit? After all, if they are left unchecked, how will they be able to afford their brand new Range Rover Vogue?

It is their passion that needs to be targeted if there is any hope of providing a future for Hen Harriers and other raptors in the UK. Forget prison sentences and pitiful fines... they can afford it and don't care about a little slap on the wrist.... Ban them. If they are found to have ANY links to persecution then they should have their gun licenses revoked and banned from obtaining one FOR LIFE. If they own an estate then they should be banned from obtaining licenses for holding shoots FOR LIFE. Or, even better, the rights to their land should be seized and given to conservation charities to manage instead. If they can't adhere to the laws that govern what they can and can't do on their estates, then they shouldn't be allowed to be involved at all within that sector.

The gross ineptitude of the shooting sector to drive out this aberrant behavior has gone on long enough and things need to change. BASC and RSPB have been at loggerheads for years over this issue and there is quite a fragile relationship between the two with members on both sides of the fence hurling abuse at each other, and while I see this I can't help but lose respect for both. It's getting to a stage where it's just like watching prime ministers question time with name-calling and each side defending themselves with no real action or results coming from it.

There is a petition that is being run by Dr Mark Avery here aiming to lobby the government to ban grouse shooting for good, whether this is a good idea or not is difficult to say.... yes, it may show the level of animosity towards the mindless slaughter of raptors and the disgust of the failure to stop it from happening, but there is a possibility that it may completely burn bridges in the already brittle relationship between the shooting and conservation sectors for good. This can't be helpful in safeguarding the long-term future of our raptors (and indeed our other wildlife) when they desperately need to be working together to make a difference. Ultimately though, the killing of raptors is wrong, illegal and misguided and this might be the only way to make a real statement and make the government take notice.