What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Richard Tarleton]

I think it all depends on why you press the shutter button. I enjoy taking snaps of the birds I see too , but they are just that: snaps, no more.

Exactly (but less of the "too" - I don't "just take snaps"). My photography is based (almost) entirely around collecting biological records, which end up (the records, that is, whether or not supported by photos) on local and national databases. It's sometimes systematic (in the sense of setting out with a particular purpose in mind), sometimes opportunistic (the goshawk) - but that too ends up on the county records. Fascinating what you say about your Singapore birder - presumably there must be people who actually watch, observe behaviour, study things in real time rather than freeze-frame them for later.... I have an artist friend who has done acclaimed series of paintings of two orders of birds in Latin America who doesn't use a camera in the field, relying on pencil and water colour sketches, and his contemporaneous observations on a tiny voice recorder.... I once acted as guide for a day to a group of Italian wildlife photographers, in N Ireland (back in the '80s) - their leader was also the editor of a photographic magazine. He told me that it was the express purpose of his work to wean Italian men off shooting things and convince them it was just as macho to capture things on film, with enormous lenses of course. They stayed in a local hotel...they were dressed for the day as if for hunting, in jaunty felt hats.

These cultural differences are fascinating.....

[Vox Humana]

their leader was also the editor of a photographic magazine. He told me that it was the express purpose of his work to wean Italian men off shooting things and convince them it was just as macho to capture things on film, with enormous lenses of course.

Excellent! We need a lot more people like him around the Mediterranean.

[Richard Tarleton]

Excellent! We need a lot more people like him around the Mediterranean.

The magazine as far as I can remember was called Il Teleobjettivo (Italian spelling approximate) - it does not appear to be extant. I took them first to a tern colony in Carlingford Lough, which had them clicking away.

[Bryn]

Teleobiettivo, I would guess, i.e. telephoto lens.

[gradus]

Low-flying buzzard buzzed the garden just now.

[HighlandDougie]

Italian gentlemen do like to look the part - and why not jaunty felt hats for a spot of osservazione ornitologica. I think, though, that they might cause some mirth among hard-boiled twitchers alla inglese. Anyway, despite it being about as far from the sea as is possible in Scotland, the section of a drive to Perth yesterday on a single-track hill road was made memorable by my paralleling a Sea Eagle for several miles. It made its way in a wonderfully unhurried fashion overhead as I stopped in passing places to let it catch up while I marvelled at its sheer size. I've seen them before on Rhum and on Harris (and in Torridon) but this was the best 15 minutes or so viewing yet experienced. It seems that there is a breeding pair in the relevant glen, reputed to stem from the specimens released on the East Coast of Scotland. Plenty of lambs around, rather than fish.

[LezLee]

Do you know Braco, Dougie? My friend is head gardener (well, the only gardener) at Braco Castle and lives in. Lots of birdlife and red squirrels, lovely place. He's driven mad though by marauding pheasants which are very destructive.

[HighlandDougie]

Do you know Braco, Dougie? My friend is head gardener (well, the only gardener) at Braco Castle and lives in. Lots of birdlife and red squirrels, lovely place. He's driven mad though by marauding pheasants which are very destructive.

I do indeed know Braco - and will be driving through it tomorrow en route to Edinburgh (for Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic tomorrow evening). Current madness of thousands of fledgling (or post-fledgling) pheasants being released like innocents to the slaughter on the roads. I find it to be deeply perturbing.

[Vox Humana]

I do indeed know Braco - and will be driving through it tomorrow en route to Edinburgh (for Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic tomorrow evening). Current madness of thousands of fledgling (or post-fledgling) pheasants being released like innocents to the slaughter on the roads. I find it to be deeply perturbing.

Rightly so, Dougie. The latest issue of the journal British Birds contains an article on the potential impact of releasing 43,000,000 pheasants into our countryside annually for shooting. Only a third of these are actually shot. The rest either survive or fall victim to traffic, predators or disease. Of the birds shot only a small proportion end up on the table. The rest are dumped in 'stink pits' to rot. The abundant availability of prey that these pheasant farms provide obviously has an impact on predator populations, which gamekeepers often 'control' illegally, although Defra have also been known to issue licences for the destruction of Buzzards near pheasant farms. Then there's all the lead shot that ends up in the countryside. And so forth. It's a complex subject. The article is not a light read, but, if anyone is sufficiently interested, a free pdf of it can be had by sending an email admin@wildjustice.org.uk with PHEASANTS as the email's subject.

[oddoneout]

Rightly so, Dougie. The latest issue of the journal British Birds contains an article on the potential impact of releasing 43,000,000 pheasants into our countryside annually for shooting. Only a third of these are actually shot. The rest either survive or fall victim to traffic, predators or disease. Of the birds shot only a small proportion end up on the table. The rest are dumped in 'stink pits' to rot. The abundant availability of prey that these pheasant farms provide obviously has an impact on predator populations, which gamekeepers often 'control' illegally, although Defra have also been known to issue licences for the destruction of Buzzards near pheasant farms. Then there's all the lead shot that ends up in the countryside. And so forth. It's a complex subject. The article is not a light read, but, if anyone is sufficiently interested, a free pdf of it can be had by sending an email admin@wildjustice.org.uk with PHEASANTS as the email's subject.

I'm not a vegetarian and have no objection in principle to shooting for food but don't think that this kind of activity can be justified. It would be dubious even if the potential food(shot birds) was used, because of the environmental and ecological impacts, but given the wastage from this industrial scale shooting I'm on the side of rethinking the whole thing. Better to use the food and the space given to the gamebirds to raise domestic meat animals - proper freerange chickens and turkeys for instance?

[Vox Humana]

I agree. Just don't get me started on grouse shooting and the near extinction by gamekeepers of our breeding Hen Harriers.

The article mentions that guns pay, on average, £35 per pheasant shot (compared to £75 per grouse). It also informs us that, "As a paying gun, you don’t take your shot birds home with you – you’ve only paid to shoot them. You are likely to be offered a brace of Pheasants, probably from an earlier shoot (so plucked and dressed rather than bloody and torn) to take home but the shooting estate keeps the dead birds. However, the value of the average shot Pheasant is practically zero these days, and some game dealers suggest that they should be paid to come and pick up the dead birds rather than pay for them. The market is saturated because so many birds are shot (and despite the fact that the carcase could sell in the shops for £3.25 unboned and £6.50 boned and stuffed; pers. obs.). Consequently, much game is eaten by gamekeepers and estate workers and their families and pets."

[Richard Tarleton]

A revolting aspect of pheasant shooting is that the last thing a threatened pheasant wants to do is to fly - they prefer to scuttle off into deep cover. They are only forced to do something completely against their instincts by a combination of beaters and trip wires placed around 9 inches off the ground.

[ardcarp]

Change of subject.

It always amazes me how 'ordinary' passerines are so much tamer on islands than they are on the mainland. We've observed this on the Isles of Scilly and on the many offshore islands in Brittany.

This July we noticed that oystercatchers (huitrier pie) on the unlikely and remote Ile de Sein were far less easily spooked by people than in, say, an Endlish estuary or shoreline. Their typical behaviour is to utter their peeping cry and fly off at the slightest disturbance. Here they tended to fly around and land in much larger groups than we usually observe, and our proximity didn't seem to bother them.

[LezLee]

I'd love to see oystercatchers close up. Such elegant birds. There are lots down at Skinflats on the Forth estuary and on a still evening you can hear them and the curlews. Lovely.

[HighlandDougie]

Their return inland from the seashore in February is always a welcome sight - and sound. But they do sometimes choose very exposed places to nest, e.g in the field next to my house, although the farmer did stick a pole in the ground next to the nest with a flag on it to make sure that tractors etc gave it a wide berth.