Showing posts with label BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey and the BTO/RSPB/JNCC Wetland Bird Survey.Grey Partridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey and the BTO/RSPB/JNCC Wetland Bird Survey.Grey Partridge. Show all posts

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Double Whammy

There’s a double blow to our ringing plans this weekend. Number One is the weather with a Red weather warning of severe winds up to 70mph over northern Britain as Storm Arwen passes over in a north to south direction. Sat here in my office there’s a hoolie blowing and I’m not for going anywhere until Monday when the winds should ease. 

Wednesday saw another visit to Project Linnet where Catch of the Day was that extreme rarity - a Song Thrush. After a little levelling off in recent years the graph seems to be heading in a downward direction again via “a rapid decline in England” - BTO Bird Trends. 

For what it’s worth the decline in this part of Lancashire seems especially marked where the Song Thrush is no longer a garden bird and is one that receives barely a mention on local bird news Internet sites. Our own catches of Song Thrushes number so few that catching a Song Thrush becomes a Red Letter Day. 

Bird Trends - British Trust for Ornithology
 
Song Thrush 

In addition to the single Song Thrush we caught 1 Redwing, 2 “continental” Blackbirds, 2 Blue Tit, 1 Greenfinch, 1 Robin and added another seven Linnets to our totals. 

Redwing

Greenfinch

Linnet

Just as were looked forward to better weather next week, Friday morning brought unwelcome Blow Number Two. 

“Dear Philip” 

“Avian influenza H5N1 (pathogenicity to be confirmed) has been found in a premises near Poulton le Fylde, Wyre, Lancashire. A 3km and 10km Control Zone has been put in place around the premises. Please see the map here for more information (search on SD3748). 

You are being notified as we can see you, or your ringing group, have either submitted ringing records from close to the outbreak in recent years or your postal address is within the area. 

Effective immediately, as a precaution, the following measures apply: All ringing is suspended within the 10 km Control Zone as outlined on the map until further notice. 

We will inform you by email when ringing can recommence and we will be monitoring the situation during the BTO Christmas period.” 

Avian Flu Hotspot
 
A couple of our local ringing sites fall into the exclusion zone, another unwanted blow to our commitment to local bird ringing, activities that monitor bird populations for the benefit of society as a whole. Project Linnet (and farmland birds) is now on hold until sometime in 2022. 

This latest episode is the third recorded outbreak of bird flu at the same Preesall/Pilling premises https://anotherbirdblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-touch-of-flu.html 

Once again in 2021 the avian virus has been found where Pheasants, Red-legged Partridge and Mallards are reared in captivity so as to be released into the countryside for shooting. This is a subject covered many times here on Another Bird Blog, in the birding press on a regular basis and in National newspapers on a number of occasions. As ever there is no interest from the UK Government or other parties to put a stop to an archaic practice that has such a devastating impact upon native species. 

The BTO Atlas of 2013 tells me that the numbers of captive-bred Pheasants released into the wild has increased fivefold since the early 1960s to around 35 million birds annually. Some 15 million Pheasant are shot annually. 

Captive Pheasant rearing

“High densities of Pheasants potentially have negative effects on native species, but these have been poorly studied. Indirect effects possibly include modification of the structure of the field layer, the spread of disease and parasites and competition for food. Recent research indicates that infection with caecal nematodes from farm-reared Pheasants may be contributing to the decline of Grey Partridge.” 

Grey Partridge

When I watch hordes of young Pheasants thundering through late summer fields and woodland edge there is no doubt in my mind that their effect on the environment is wholly negative. 

The BTO Atlas also states that there has been a 91% population decline of Grey Partridge in the UK between 1967-2010, during the Breeding Atlas of 1968-72 and the Breeding Atlas of 1988-91. 

“Local extinctions may be masked in some areas by the release of captive-bred birds onto shooting estates: about 100,000 captive-reared Grey Partridges are released in Britain each year”. The Atlas gives no figures on the number of captive-bred birds subsequently shot for sport; neither does it give any indication of how any surviving birds impact upon any truly wild Grey Partridge population. 

Given that the Grey Partridge is in any case a secretive and difficult species to study, any such investigation would by now be almost impossible to conduct. 

The problem is further complicated by the release into the same environment of Red-legged Partridge, a picture I know only too well from local farms. 

Red=legged Partridge
 
"As more farms diversify into shooting, the number of Red-legged Partridges released has increased and this is illustrated by the National Gamebag Census, where numbers shot quadrupled between 1990 and 2005 (Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust 2013). It is estimated that 6.5 million partridges (Grey and Red-legged) were released across the UK in 2004, and 2.6 million were shot. There has been little research on the impacts of released birds on native species, but there is some evidence that shooting operations based on large-scale releases of Red-legged Partridges could be implicated in local extinctions of Grey Partridges.” 

Red-legged Partridge

To my unscientific but daily birding eyes that last sentence would seem to be a gross understatement. 

At the end of the day there is one conclusion to be drawn from this now familiar, sorry story. 

Nothing will change - just Follow The Money. 



 

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Trends

The weather’s becoming unfit for man or beast. Storm Diana is hurtling up the Irish Sea and it looks like there will be zero birding or ringing for a few days or more. 

So for this post I'm turning to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and recent information on indicators of bird population trends for UK and England, first published on 8 November 2018. 

These indicators are part of the Government’s suite of biodiversity indicators that show the fortunes of birds of farmland, woodland, waterways & and wetlands, and marine & coastal between 1970 and 2017. 

Regular readers may recognise a number of bird names here as they occur here on the blog with alarming regularity, usually for the reasons highlighted again by this latest information, the relentless downward trend of their populations. The graphs below may suggest some recent levelling off which may not be a cause for celebration when so many species are at levels which could hardy drop much more. There are still too many downward trends on the diagrams and hardly any showing upward movements. The bold highlights are my own, those that equate to the situation here in Lancashire. 

The indicators are calculated annually by the BTO, RSPB and Department for Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and are based almost entirely on data collected by volunteers contributing to national bird monitoring schemes such as the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey and the BTO/RSPB/JNCC Wetland Bird Survey. 

Population trends of common birds that are native to, and breed in, the UK are assessed using two assessment periods: long-term (for most species between 1970 and 2017), and short-term (2011-2016). The wintering bird indicator shows how the internationally-important numbers of wintering waders, wildfowl and other water-birds using coasts and wetlands have changed since c1975. 

Changes in the abundance of breeding birds of woodland, farmland, water and wetlands and all-species in the UK. 

The breeding farmland bird index continued to fall and has declined by more than half between 1970 and 2017 in the UK. Whilst most of these declines occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a short-term decline of 7% since 2011. Farmland specialists showed the most prominent declines; for example, Corn Bunting, Grey Partridge, Turtle Dove and Tree Sparrow all declined by at least 90% since 1970. Grey Partridge and Turtle Dove also declined strongly in the short-term, but there was no change for Corn Bunting or Tree Sparrow during this time. Conversely, some farmland specialists (e.g. Stock Dove and Goldfinch) have more than doubled in the long-term. This illustrates that responses to pressures are likely to vary between species. 

Changes in the abundance of  farmland birds 1970 to 2017 in the UK.

Grey Partridge

The breeding woodland bird index for the UK has declined by 25% between 1970 and 2017, and 5% over the recent short-term period. These declines are greater than documented previously, driven by the declining numbers of woodland specialists; down 46% since 1970. Generalist woodland species, typically those that also breed in gardens or wooded areas of farmland, have increased overall, by 14%. Woodland species such as Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, Spotted Flycatcher and Willow Tit have shown the most serious declines (more than 80%) since 1970, whilst numbers of Long-tailed Tit, Blackcap and Nuthatch have almost doubled, and the Great-spotted Woodpecker is three times as abundant as it was several decades ago. 

Changes in the abundance of woodland birds between 1970 and 2017 in the UK. 

The breeding water and wetland bird index for the UK fell by 6% between 1975 and 2017, but over the short-term increased slightly by 3%. Over the long-term, species associated with slow-flowing and standing water, and with reed beds, fared better than those associated with fast-flowing water or with wet grasslands. Lapwing, Redshank, Snipe and Common Sandpiper showed the strongest declines over the long-term, athough Snipe has shown a recovery of 27% in the recent short-term period. 

The abundance of breeding water and wetland birds between 1975 and 2017 in the UK. 

Snipe

Ringed Plover

The breeding seabird index was not updated this year due to a shift of effort by the JNCC Seabird Monitoring team towards the ongoing Seabird Census. In the UK, the seabird index declined by 22% between 1986 and 2015. Declines began in the mid-2000s; and more recently, between 2009 and 2014 there was a 14% decline in the indicator, driven largely by large declines for Arctic Skua and Black-legged Kittiwake. The wintering waterbird index was 106% higher than in 1975/1976 in the UK. The index peaked in the late 1990s, and has declined since; by 4% between 2010/2011 and 2015/2016. Some wintering waterbirds have increased markedly over the long-term, including Gadwall, Whooper Swan, Avocet and Black-tailed Godwit. Conversely, White-fronted Goose, Eider, Ringed Plover and Dunlin all declined.  

The abundance of wintering waterbirds between 1975 /76 and 2016/17 in the UK.   





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