I spent the morning with a group of farmers at a conference at Hatfield House where I talked about what we had achieved at Hope Farm in terms of profitable farming and increased bird numbers. It was a good event and I enjoyed the chat.
But it didn't come as a great surprise when the first question was along the lines of 'You haven't mentioned predators at all - isn't the decline in bird numbers down to them?'. This certainly isn't a silly question but I am usually on a hiding to nothing with a farming audience on this one! Saying that the science, so far, has exonerated sparrowhawks and magpies as having much impact on the populations of declining farmland species such as skylarks, corn buntings and turtle doves and declining woodland species such as spotted flycatchers and marsh tits counts for nothing! It's obvious that predators must cause declines in their prey - I'm told.
Well, so far, the science doesn't point strongly in that direction. I know there are more studies in the pipeline that may emerge soon so we'll have to wait and see what they say.
But examples such as Hope Farm are pretty telling. There we have increased farmland bird numbers very strongly without killing predators such as foxes, crows, stoats - and certainly not raptors. Now maybe if we had done ruthless predator control then the songbird increases would have been even more impressive but that wouldn't fit with the way we want to manage our land (and incidentally would be expensive too!).
I've written before on this blog that predation is part of life - and a cause of death in the natural world. We are one of the very few species on Earth where being eaten by another stronger species is not one of our daily worries. Sparrowhawks and magpies are part of the mix of predators and their prey.
I guess it's possible that sometimes magpies take the eggs of sparrowhawks - I can't see why they wouldn't - but if they do, then just occasionally sparrowhawks get their own back. There are two amazing videos of sparrowhawks with magpies as their prey (click here and here to see them - not for the sensitive!).
I met several farmers who delighted in telling me about the wildlife on their farm, and what they had done to help it increase. And I was really glad to hear their stories. A few more farmers doing a bit more (whether paid for by the taxpayer through agri-environment schemes or simply through their own enthusiasm) would make a really big difference to the numbers of birds in the countryside. And today most of the farmers I met seemed very keen to do their bit.
Yes Mark I think that most farmers do accept grudgingly that predators are not the biggest problem although when you see a Magpie search for a nest in your garden and then kill all nestlings emotion means you hate Magpies whereas a raptor only normally takes one individual(just know someone will point out it may be parent and so the young die).When we visited the Peregrines near Plymouth the guardians of the pair told us that a Magpie had picked up a peregrine chick out of the nest but the chick was too heavy and dropped it back in nest,how cheeky.Think thing generally looking up for farmland birds with more knowledge of what is needed and better relationship between RSPB and farmers,think your attitude is commendable and both sides do have to work together to improve things and it will definitely be a long struggle but the alternative is terrible.Think you said it all when you said most of the farmers you met seemed keen to do their bit.Always seems unfair to say it but think the way forward is for RSPB experts to persuade farmers to get enthusiastic about increasing bird numbers and the reward is seeing the increased numbers with any grants a bit of a bonus,after all it is similar to a householder feeding birds in the garden and people get lots of pleasure from seeing them.We went to RSPB Greylake today,thousands of Ducks,lots of Plovers and a pair of Marsh Harriers flew around for 30 minutes or so and on one pylon a Peregrine,with a Hen Harrier on the next pylon.In all a really nice day,thank you RSPB.
I can't help wondering, only slightly mischievously, whether we shooters should get ourselves re-classified as predators - in which case our impact on bird populations would by definition become negligible. We might even qualify for protection as an endangered species!
Jamesm - Hi! Interesting. Which raptor do you think you most resemble? The BASC membership alone (c 129,000 I believe - I imagine many of these are males rather than breeding pairs!) is rather higher than that of the sparrowhawk (c42,000 pairs) so I don't think that shooters are likely to be classified as endangered in the near future. But there is another analogy - if the RSPB believed that predators necessarily reduced the long-term population levels of their prey then we would have to be much more worried about the population impacts of shooting! If anything (or anyone) who kills any species led to a population decline then the sustainability of wildfowling would be questionable. Predators, and sustainable shooting, kill individual prey species but they do not have much impact on their prey populations.
Sooty - thanks. I'm glad you had a good time at Greylake. I hope you had a lovely sunny day like it was over here in the east. I like Greylake - and our other nature reserves on the Somerset Levels too (West Sedgemoor and Ham Wall).
Hmm, good question. I think I'd pick something graceful and athletic like a peregrine, although I suspect my friends would suggest a scraggy old owl!
You've put your finger on it by making the distinction between individuals and populations; that is at the heart of the paradox in the phrase 'shooting and conservation'.
I think it's important to distinguish between different types of shooting. If wildfowling is a predator/prey relationship, then a driven pheasant shoot is more like farmer/livestock.
Jamesm - indeed. Grouse shooting (high input/high output very intensive free-range farming of targets) is very different from wildfowling (low input/low output harvesting). That oversimplifies the differences but only to make a point - big differences do exist. And I know that they create tensions within the shooting 'community'.
Hi Jamesm,think you mean very mischievously.Don't like shooting but it is interesting that land managed for shooting often is good for wildlife,perhaps the exception being where it is managed for Grouse and I do believe if some do not clean up their act with Hen Harriers,Eagles,Goshawks and perhaps others they will eventually shoot themselves in the foot.Surely they have to learn to be tolerant or the tide of public opinion will go against all shooting which is probably in no ones interest.Perhaps I am in better position than most of public but I see most shooting people and fishery owners are real wildlife enthusiasts which although have seen it for years still seems slightly surprising to me.