The Birds And Bees!

Pintail Williamson's Park. Pete Woodruff.

Having been surprised to find a drake Pintail on the pond in Williamson's Park on 6 March. I was later reliably informed of one being seen recently on the canal in Lancaster. Thinking this was almost certainly one and the same bird I went off to take a look, but was disappointed not to find the bird where it had been reported.

As a bit of compensation for dipping on the Pintail, a pair of Goosander were on the canal in the Moor Lane area.

A mosey around Williamson's Park was rewarded by my first 2 Chiffchaff of the year, also Nuthatch, a Goldcrest, and several singing Robin. The Standen Park Rook colony have built at least 15 nests, and I found my first Red Admiral of the year.

I'm grateful to Howard Stockdale for his header image of the Spotted Redshank which is currently being being seen in the creeks at Conder Green. I have seen this bird at least three times over the past weeks but always on the Lune Estuary, which is where I repeatedly keep seeing the Avocets, but not on Conder Pool where the best count to date has been twenty five.

Also interesting on Conder Pool, 2 Mediterranean Gull reported including a colour ringed bird. The two beauties in the video are an adult and 2nd summer that I found here 25 June 2019.

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Common Carder Bee Bombus pascuorum. Pete Woodruff.

With a slowly developing interest in bees, in particular the Bombus Bumblebees. I was drawn to an interesting and worrying article in the Lune Valley Beekeepers January Newsletter, from which this is an extract....  

Cruiser SB.

Ban use of bee-killing pesticide in the UK, business chiefs tell government. The UK government should stop ignoring the science and block a bee-killing pesticide from being used, business leaders have said. 

The neonicotinoid pesticide Cruiser SB is used on sugar beet and is highly toxic to bees. It is banned in the EU but the UK has provisionally agreed to its emergency use every year since leaving the bloc. In 2017, the then environment secretary, Michael Gove, promised to use Brexit to ban all neonicotinoids. 

Government scientific advisers said in September they were not able to support an authorisation for Cruiser SB, because the “potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators outweigh the likely benefits.”

Now a group of businesses that depend on pollinators, including some farmers and those who use botanicals in their products, have said the government must heed their advice and not allow bee-killing pesticides to be used. 

In a letter to Mark Spencer the farming minister, Anabel Kindersley the chief executive of Neal’s Yard Remedies, Tim Mead the head of Yeo Valley, as well as the boards of Lush and the Body Shop have all asked him to block Cruiser SB from use. “We need to listen to the scientists. Excessive pesticide use is killing our bees and other essential insect species that we rely on for a healthy, safe and clean environment,” they wrote. 

A single teaspoon of neonicotinoid is enough to deliver a lethal dose to 1.25bn bees. One-third of the UK bee population has disappeared in the last decade, and since 1900 the UK has lost 13 out of 35 native bee species.