Two more white-tailed eagles commit suicide and hide their own bodies on grouse moors;
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Wildlife lowlight of the week
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Posted 4 years ago #
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I see they managed to die in ways that disabled their trackers. How puzzling. I wonder what sort of animal could manage that? (Facebook thread under RSPB post about this is full of people claiming wind turbines done it.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
(Facebook thread under RSPB post about this is full of people claiming wind turbines done it.)
Humanity is [rule 2]ed, isn't it?
Posted 4 years ago # -
The last needle-tailed swift to be spotted in the UK of GB&NI was filmed being killed by a wind turbine blade. They are almost unknown here and people were very excited.
Horrible but true.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Not really wildlife, but dead sheep on north side of Castlelaw Hill. Two crows were pecking at it, but there was very little left to pick at.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Has the Kingsknowe Rat been on holiday? If not then it must have been it's blue blooded cousin the Dalmeny Rat on the A90 path this morning.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Long live the Dalmeny Rat.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Pigeon feathers all over my garden this morning. No sign of pigeon so perhaps it escaped, a bit baldy?
Posted 4 years ago # -
What looked suspiciously like a flattened hedgehog on Gilmerton Road.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Man on news declining to leave very flooded Fishlake home as the shelter cant take his Goshawk
Posted 4 years ago # -
Guy better watch it. Goshawk will have him if it gets batey.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yes he certainly did not look like much of a match for a Goshawk, poor schmo
Posted 4 years ago # -
Not so much a lowlight of the week, but of the year: the number of avian inhabitants in our garden has declined markedly in the last 12-18 months. We used to have blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinch, greenfinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, house sparrows, dunnocks, robins, blackbirds, jackdaws and pigeons more or less permanently in residence and making more less legitimate use of the bird feeders. Not to mention other transient species including brambling, siskin, woodpecker, crows, magpies and sparrowhawk (and, on one memorable occasion, a pair of mallard dabbling rather ineffectually in our 6ft by 3ft pond!)
These days we just have a few blue tits, a robin and a blackbird or two. The finches have disappeared, the tits are much less varied and the jackdaws fly past without giving us a second glance. Possible factors could include the finch disease (I have tried to be diligent about cleaning the feeders), the fact that we have lost a number of mature trees over the period (although all have been replaced, the new ones are taking a while to get properly established) or changes elsewhere in the neighbourhood (I do wonder whether the development of the redundant waterworks on Comiston Road to residential housing might have reduced the amount of undisturbed land in the area below a threshold level?)
Although somewhat made up for by the explosion in the spawning frog population since we had the pond enlarged, the relative paucity of birds makes the garden noticeably quieter, with less interest and entertainment than it used to have. Which is a shame.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The skeleton and fur of a badger in a cage trap about 100m from a gamekeeper's house on a Highland estate.
Photos, GPS co-ordinates and narrative on their way to Poileas na h-Alba and the SSPCA who will be quite unable to do a single thing about a wild mammal dying of thirst in a metal box.
Posted 4 years ago # -
That is very bad on the badger front
In better news the xmas Bullfinches wer back in my garden just ther. They do nt mess about and can spell
Posted 4 years ago # -
Oh, that's a point. Is there such a thing as a legal trap? I found and photographed a trap in the Lammermuirs over the holidays. Is it worth reporting? Any links with information about what I might have seen? Any groups who would be interested even if the police are not?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Is there such a thing as a legal trap?
There are many legal traps. This was,on the face of it, a legal trap. However;
As a general rule an offence is committed if, when using a trap or snare, an operator:
Fails to check traps or snares as and when required.
Sets traps or snares on land without the land manager/owner's permission.
Sets traps or snares in a way that is likely to cause unnecessary suffering.
Sets traps or snares in situations where protected species are likely to be caught.
Sets traps or snares in breach of the conditions set out in the relevant legislation or licences.Having a badger die of dehydration is unarguably causing unnecessary suffering.
Also badgers are specifically protected in Scotland;
Posted 4 years ago # -
On a Hogmanay hill walk from Kingussie, I spotted a cage trap just beyond the fence at the edge of the artificial treeline. There was a sign nearby which explained that it was there to catch foxes, crows and some other potential predators/botherers of grouse, which I now forget, and that not only was it legal, but it is actually against the law to even think about tampering with it. The sign went on to explain the important work that the estate is doing in maintaining the natural environment of driven grouse moors for the benefit of us all.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Thank you both.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Larsen traps are the standard method for catching crows on shooting estates.
The crow catching is done legally under general licence and goshawks are so radge that they can barely be stopped from going into the traps to eat the crows, affording the operator of the trap the opportunity to kill the elusive raptor with a simple stick when it goes to sleep and conventional video cameras no longer function. Sometimes they do it in broad daylight and get more than a wrist-slap.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Police very interested in the trapped badger. I will give them a formal statement when one of the Lothian wildlife crime specialists is free and officers local to the area will go and collect the poor beast's remains and its prison.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #
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What's the legal situation regarding wire cage traps and a couple of the many zip ties a passing cyclist usually carried with them?
Posted 4 years ago # -
I think we're beyond the guerrilla action stage. Time the law was changed. Driven bird shooting should stop today.
There isn't even a legal obligation to put a licence number on a cage trap the way there is on a spring trap or a snare.
Posted 4 years ago # -
big thread this, could be a forum in itself, yes
Posted 4 years ago # -
These days we just have a few blue tits, a robin and a blackbird or two. The finches have disappeared, the tits are much less varied and the jackdaws fly past without giving us a second glance
i wouldnt worry too much about this
finches are fickle outwith summer
if you're wind exposed, the remaining tits will seek a far lower winter perch, unless you are an extraordinary diverse and ultra-reliable feeder, with water cover to boot
i cover all these bases dilligently and get a good all year round crowd despite being at the top of a high windy hill
mostly this be a cyclical scenario
where do the finches go? northern africa i expect
or cumbria... the bastard brexit heartland
Posted 4 years ago # -
Greenfinches have not done well the last couple of years. Bullfinches and goldfinches seem to have taken up some of the slack but not all.
Weirdly pied wagtails seem to have cottoned on to winter urban living all of a sudden. Small flock going unnoticed by the Kirkgate street drinkers these days.
@bax
Wildlife torture and murder could indeed form a whole forum. Grim one too.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The feds have recovered the cage trap containing a badger carcass that I reported and are treating it as evidence of criminal activity.
I expect the landowner and their agents are trembling in their Chameau wellies.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Greenfinches have not done well the last couple of years
there's still plenty round here.. i had four of them on top of the birch tree yesterday with two goldfinch on tow
but yeah.. you can tell the puffy ones in the summer have caught the virus.. some kind of mad ME lethargy effect.. cant eat due to chronic throat swelling.. no energy to fly.. its so very sad to see
yet its less than one in a couple of dozen by my reckoning, and the healthy ones might be the toughest firm in the finch world but they are messy eaters that attract far too many pigeons
Posted 4 years ago #
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