Catastrophe

We may have been prevented from ringing for over two months but there are still Linnets in circulation from earlier catches, birds that at later dates might deliver all manner of information. We received notification of one such individual. 

It was 12 September 2021 along the Pilling/Cockerham coast that I ringed Linnet number AKN3729 as a juvenile/first autumn male. This was one of 7 Linnets caught that morning before I signed off for a two week holiday to Sunny Greece.  

A few months later Linnet AKN3729 was recaptured on 30 January 2022, inland and almost due south at Fogg's Farm, Antrobus, Cheshire by members of Merseyside Ring Group; they were able to work their Fogg’s Farm site as normal while our own ringing was stalled because of avian flu. 

Linnet - Cockerham, Lancashire - Antrobus, Cheshire

Linnet

Juvenile Linnets are known to disperse in a south and south westerly direction during the autumn period, some as far as France and Spain. We have no further sighting of AKN3792 so both its origins and eventual destination are unknown but the bird remains in circulation to provide more clues should it be found again.  

Another recovery was more predictable – that of one of our ringed birds taken by a domestic cat. 

A young female Greenfinch Ring number NF87535 ringed at Cockerham on 15 October 2021 was found freshly dead, taken by a cat, just 18 kms away, at Staining, Blackpool on 4 February 2022. 

Greenfinch

 

Wonderly’s photo, “Caught by Cats,” recently won first place in the 2020 Big Picture Natural World Photography Competition’s Human/Nature category. His image highlights a grim picture. 

Cat Kill - National Geographic

The photo would need to be multiplied 10 million times to come close to showing the billions of animals killed by cats each year. 

A 2013 study estimated free-ranging domestic cats kill between 1.3 and 4 billion birds - on top of between 6.2 and 22.3 billion mammals every year in the United States alone, the majority by feral or unowned cats. 

Figures released by the Mammal Society show the UK's estimates for domestic cat kills to be equally shocking: around 100 million prey items between Spring and Summer, of which 27 million were birds - and that’s not counting the creatures the cats didn't bring home. 

But, according to the UK Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), there is no scientific evidence to link cats to bird population decline in the UK. I for one do not believe that, perhaps because RSPB members are also likely to be cat lovers? 

The message is simple. Cat Lovers should not let their cat roam in the countryside, even in their own or neighbours’ garden where birds may feed. 

And do not feed feral cats. Such kindness may be doing more harm than good. 

Linking today to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.