BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND...............................................................RED GROUSE HAWTHORNTHWAITE PETE WOODRUFF

Thursday, 4 November 2010

Raptor Persecution and....


....three Americans!

I think you may be interested in THIS where you can also link to the government press release on the subject. The request to the RSPB now is....please make a move in the direction of the government to bring this law to England and Wales post haste, where the problem of persecution continues and - in my opinion - possibly gets worse.

There are three American birds to note in the UK at the moment one of which was found on 31 October in the south east of Ireland at Tacumshin in Co Wexford and is a Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus hudsonius - previously Marsh Hawk - and is the American race of the Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus in relation to which the males plumage is darker, as is the females which is more rufous in colour. Another is an American Bittern (AB) in Cornwall, apparently access to the location of the bird is closed after Sunday for some reason. This bird is superficially similar to the European Bittern but is slightly smaller and has several differences some subtle, I think if one ever pops briefly out of the reeds at Leighton Moss you'll need to be pretty smart to claim it as an AB. On a local level the most famous AB has to be the one found at Marton Mere, Blackpool in January 1991 which almost completed a four months stay there until May. The third is the long staying Green Heron also in Cornwall.

Please take a look at the video of the Northern Harrier which is over 3.5 minutes long, but stick with it as it is quite good, only the man near the end of the video worried me a little though he confesses to only taking photographs but I was uncomfortable about him. 


I'D SOONER BE BIRDING!

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