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KOS News the Newsletter of the Kent Ornithological Society Number 504 June 2016

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KOS News the Newsletter of the Kent Ornithological Society Number 504 June 2016 KOS News The Newsletter of the Kent Ornithological Society Number 504 June 2016 Oriental Turtle Dove, Otford by Andrew Moon ● News & Announcements ● ● My grouse with grouse shooting by Dr Mark Avery ● Black-headed Gulls using Kearsney Parks ● Missing Birds● Nearctic passerines in Kent ● Bird Sightings March - May 2016● Fifty Years Ago● 1 KOS Contacts – Committee Members Newsletter Editor: Norman McCanch, 23 New Street, Ash, Canterbury, Kent CT3 2BH Tel: 01304-813208 e-mail: [email protected] Membership Sec: Chris Roome, Rowland House, Station Rd., Staplehurst TN12 0PY Tel: 01580 891686 e- mail:[email protected] Chairman: Martin Coath, 14A Mount Harry Rd Sevenoaks TN13 3JH Tel: 01732-460710 e-mail: [email protected] Vice Chair.: Brendan Ryan, 18 The Crescent, Canterbury CT2 7AQ Tel: 01227 471121 e-mail: [email protected] Hon. Sec: Stephen Wood, 4 Jubilee Cottages, Throwley Forstal, Faversham ME13 0PJ. Tel: 01795 890485. e-mail: [email protected] Hon. Treasurer: Mike Henty, 12 Chichester Close, Witley, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5PA Tel: 01428-683778 e-mail: [email protected] Conservation & Surveys: : Norman McCanch, as above Editorial & Records: Barry Wright, 6 Hatton Close, Northfleet, DA11 8SD Tel: 01474 320918 e-mail: [email protected] Archivist: Robin Mace, 4 Dexter Close, Kennington, Ashford, TN25 4QG Tel: 01233-631509 e-mail: [email protected] Website liaison: vacant Indoor Meetings organiser: TBA Outdoor Meetings organiser: Ray O’Reily 44 New Road, Cliffe, Rochester, Kent ME3 7SL 07879 636198 [email protected] Ordinary Members: Ken Lodge 14 Gallwey Avenue, Birchington, Kent CT7 9PA Tel : 01843 843105 e-mail: [email protected] Keith Privett 6 Tritton Close, Kennington, Ashford, Kent TN24 9HN Tel: 01233 335533 e-mail: [email protected] Jack Chantler 34 Gladstone Road, Walmer, Kent CT14 7ET Tel: 01304 366214 e-mail: [email protected] Andy Appleton 34 Pennine Walk Tunbridge Wells Kent TN2 3NW 01892 513542 e-mail: [email protected] Tony Morris, The Hidden House, 28 Kingstown Road, St Margaret’s at Cliffe, Kent CT7 6AZ 01304 851943 e-mail: [email protected] 2 Editorial I am very grateful to Dr Mark Avery for providing us with a summary of the plight of the Hen Harrier in England for this issue. I saw my very first Harrier as a thirteen year old in the late summer of 1967, one of the pair of Marsh Harriers nesting at the time at Minsmere in Suffolk. In 1970 I met my first ‘grey ghost’, a stunning male Hen Harrier near Harty Ferry on Sheppey, while the following year I discovered the Montagu’s Harriers clinging on as a breeding species in West Wales near my Grannies house. Harriers have never been common in my experience, meeting them is still a worthy experience and I marvel at their easy, skilful flight. When I moved to East Kent in the late seventies Hen Harriers were a regular winter bird with sometimes up to ten arriving at a winter roost at Stodmarsh. This pales into insignificance when compared with a roost site on the north of the Isle of Man, where in winter 1991 I counted over sixty birds arriving from surrounding moorlands in the stiff northerly breeze. I was fortunate enough to find the first Hen Harrier nest on the Calf of Man, and ringed successive broods of this charismatic bird in the four years I lived there. In autumn it was possible to see a dozen birds at roost on the Calf, even though large numbers still visited the site in the north. Moving forward to the present winter, only a handful of birds were recorded in the main roost sites in Kent, a typical situation in the past few years. I am not too sure how many of our winter birds come from the continent, but growing levels of illegal persecution on moorlands in England and Scotland seem to make it a very real possibility that we might not see this species wintering in Kent in the future. But it doesn’t have to be like this; go back six years and I was standing on a minor roadside in France, on the chalky uplands of the Val D’Indrois, south of the Loire looking for butterflies. I had spent the morning watching Little Bustards, Stone Curlew, Quail and Red legged Partridges, while pairs of both Hen and Montagu’s Harriers hunted over the cereal fields and rough grassland. “Chasse Gardeé” signs abounded, but it was clear that significant areas of unimproved grassland punctuated the fields of wheat and maize, and an effective crow trap was visible in the distance. I van stopped, sporting a badge on the door with an unlikely juxtaposition of a stag, pheasant and a fish. The occupant got out and politely enquired what I was searching for; when I replied that I was looking at butterflies, flowers, birds and all of nature he became quite animated. This man was the local manager for the Hunting Association. He asked me if I had seen the bustards and told me where to see them more easily; he pointed out the harriers with a certain pride and the described an ‘autre rapace, avec le ventre blanc, qui mangé les serpents’. He was delighted at my excitement and annotated my 3 map to indicate from where I might watch one of the two pairs of Short- toed Eagles feeding their young on his territory. He pointed out that the natural, unimproved grasslands were beneficial “ pour le chasse et pour les oiseaux” and he was clearly proud of both. If only it were like this in Britain…… Good birding, Norman News and announcements We like to keep in touch with all our members, so if you change address, email address or phone numbers, please remember to inform our membership secretary, Chris Roome. He can be contacted on : Chris Roome, Rowland House, Station Rd., Staplehurst TN12 0PY Tel: 01580 891686 e-mail:[email protected] The London Bird Report 2014 The latest issue of the London Bird Report has just been published and contains a wealth of information for people who live or work in London, or bird watch in London. This is one of the annual publications that members of the London Natural History Society (LNHS) receive as part of their membership. See www.lnhs.org.uk for details about how to join the LNHS. If you just want to buy a copy of the London Bird Report you can also find details on that website. This issue includes a paper about the Peregrine Falcon in Central London, details of only the third ever record of Blyth’s Reed Warbler in London and a study of the influx of Great Skuas in London in October 2014. The report also gives a summary of the status of all the birds that were reported in London in 2014. Highly recommended for members living in the north of the county! 4 Articles My grouse with grouse shooting by Dr Mark Avery Male Hen Harrier by Gordon Yates Driven grouse shooting is an unsporting and pointless sport that damages the ecology of our hills and depends on illegal killing of protected wildlife. It is the cause of a lack of wintering Hen Harriers in lowland England so it affects your birdwatching. In driven grouse shooting, a line of people with shotguns wait for a line of people with flags and whistles to drive Red Grouse past them so that they can shoot at them as they fly over. This isn’t hunting – it’s merely using wildlife as living targets. You may pay upwards of £5,000 for a day of such ‘sport’. The record ‘bag’ for a day of such shooting is 2929 birds, shot by eight guns in the Trough of Bowland in Lancashire on 12 August 1915. That’s over 350 birds/gun that day. Modern bags are approaching such levels again. To generate such high densities of Red Grouse, to justify such high prices; heather moorland is burned into a patchwork of long and short vegetation; Foxes, Stoats, Carrion Crows etc are killed in large numbers; Mountain Hares are killed off too (because they carry a tick which can transmit a virus to the grouse); the moorland is drained and medicated grit is provided to kill intestinal worms. Red Grouse are not reared and released but driven grouse 5 shooting depends on intensive management of the prey, their predators and their habitat. Many raptors are illegally killed because they are unsporting enough to include Red Grouse in their diet, eg Golden Eagle, Goshawk, Peregrine and Hen Harrier. This last Hen Harrier survey, in 2010, found c650 UK pairs whereas the science shows that there should be c2600 pairs. English uplands should hold over 300 of those 2600 pairs, and this year the RSPB says there is ‘a tiny handful’ of pairs. A study on a Scottish grouse moor showed that when birds of prey are properly protected, then their numbers will rise and they can remove much of the ‘shootable surplus’ of birds on which driven grouse shooting depends. There is a real conflict, you can’t have protection of birds of prey and massive grouse bags. You have to choose! What is your choice? The grouse shooters say that it’s only a few bad apples that kill raptors, but I believe there are more than a few. You need to choose whether you want an unsporting sport to continue or whether you want birds of prey to be protected. I choose legality and birds of prey over criminality and a pointless ‘sport’! Grouse shooters contend that other ground-nesting birds benefit from grouse moor management (some do, it’s true, but not all), that the hills would be covered with conifers, sheep and windfarms if grouse shooting were stopped (they wouldn’t – it’s environmental legislation that controls these activities not grouse shooters) and that money from grouse shooting delivers wealth to the economy (economists say the figures are greatly inflated and do not take everything into account anyway).
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