All Activity

They are damn cheating birds.......what was it driving?

I have a 56mm Fromtier if that's any good ?

I have one, a basic Cluson. Can be seen working but needs a new 18650 battery. Boxed with charger & adjustable clamp mount. Collect from Wednesfield, Droitwich or Telford.

My partner uses a scooter, we needed a small one that comes apart to go in a car, a Peugeot 107. Face book market place is a good start to look. The largest take apart scooter I've found so far is a Sterling Saphire. Take note small scooters can take some abuse over rough ground ie boot sales, camping etc but useless on a beach.i've had quite a few small, old, heap scooters off market place but do some research about different ones. Some are best avoided.

Correct! 100%. No vote. Just a decision taken by BASC Council and then the lame justification that this was therefore all OK.

I tried some Hull Superfast 27 gram clay cartridges in my 6lbs 14ozs side by side and did not like them at all. Too damned punchy! And this is my later father's 30" side by side gun that I had stocked and fitted for me and shoots 1 1/18 standard game loads with no discomfort at all. So Superfast may mean that Newton's Third Law makes life unpleasant at the butt end as well as at the usual muzzle end!

Sad really isnt it If it is poison

Sorry to drag up this thread. KP crisps are currently favourite in my 🏠 my butcher gets them from the wholesale for me £22/48 packets 25g bags Apparently they only make beef flavour but are very nice 😋

I don’t think there’s sufficient infrastructure to make it viable especially in the Highlands ,if one garage in the middle of nowhere is out of action you’d be stranded. Electric scooter in the boot perhaps.

We used to travel up from Kent every year for the Fenland Fair which as others have said was a small but very enjoyable day out. A sad day when it was discontinued. OB

As for Cars, the two Reps I've had dealings with both had Hilux's. They really should all have EV's.......I feel Thinking about it a bit this whole Transition thing is like the deadline for all Electric cars...Idealistic but no real thought gone into it. Toyota, Ford and many other car manufactures pulling out of the full electric market purely on it's not cost effective, and no real benefit in the long run.

👏 That must be the best post so far on the subject and brings into focus the need to be wary of evidence presented to strengthen the case for change when practical experience doesn’t reflect scientific conclusion .I await Dr O’Gormans response with great interest.

I agree Conor. You just have to take that first step in acknowledging that the figures you are relying on as the basis for your stance don’t actually exist. The evidence relies on projections and probability and estimates that cannot be or have not been quantified.

Arrived in my corner of Norfolk this week…

I totally agree with Konor on this point. One might have hoped that scientific reports would be free from any falsification of data, deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, wilful suppression and/or distortion of data, manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, etc. (Just a few phrases from the BMJ's policy on scientific misconduct) I am not convinced that publications issued by UK ornithologists, LAG members and the HSE meet those standards. Professors Rhys Green and Debbie Pain told the Oxford Lead Symposium how their calculations were based on the quantities of “gamebird meat” eaten by 87 individuals during the National Diene and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), together with the numbers of consumers in different age groups. They presented their data as though all the meat came from birds that had been shot. They did not disclose that the NDNS definition of “gamebird meat” includes farmed duck and geese, even though they had studied and cited two papers warning that in the NDNS data “we were not able to tell if the game birds were Pb-shot or had been farmed” (Taylor et al, 2013) and “Duck accounts for 70% of this average annual consumption of 250 g but it is not specified if this duck is wild or farmed” (FSAS, 2012) The truth is that Green & Pain did not have the slightest idea which of those 87 individuals had eaten any meat from wild-shot birds. Their analysis is worth no more than if they had drawn numbers out of a hat. Green & Pain estimated that the total consumption of all wild-shot birds in UK would be in the range 4,940 ‑ 9,880 tonnes per year, while DEFRA monthly statistics show that UK production of farmed duck for the period 2012-2018 averaged 29,900 tonnes per year. ADAS (2012) reported that UK production of duck meat in 2011 was 33,000 tonnes and had remained reasonably static in the previous four years, and that UK imported an additional 6,000 tonnes of duck meat in 2009. Wild-shot birds probably accounted for only a small proportion of all meat in the NDNS category “Game Birds”. The quantity of farmed duck meat was probably 3.5 – 7.0 times as much as the total of all wild-shot game. If the numbers of consumers in the NDNS data were in the same ratio, it would suggest that only 12 – 24 of those 87 individuals had eaten any wild-shot game. Statistical analysis was based on absurdly small sample numbers. Risks to very young children were calculated using NDNS data for only three individuals under the age of 5 years, and modellers did not know whether any of those three had actually eaten meat from wild-shot birds. All this should have been blindingly obvious to any competent scientist. It s not clear whether the LAG members supported this piece of work in full knowledge of all its obvious deficiencies, or whether they gave their whole-hearted approval without even bothering to read the background documents. Green & Pain (2015) asserted that their estimates of game consumption “are likely to be representative of the situation for any time of year because proportions of people eating gamebird meat have previously been found to be similar within and outside the shooting season”, taking their information from an earlier paper, also based on the NDNS data, saying “There was no effect of shooting seasonality on game bird consumption.” (Taylor et al, 2013). Apparently none of these highly qualified academics realised that seasonal variations in wild-shot game would be masked by the steady supply of very much larger quantities of farmed birds. Green & Pain artificially inflated the risk calculations by assuming that people who ate gamebird meat would consume portions more than twice the size indicated by NDNS records and by the Food Standards Agency. They claimed “We followed EFSA CONTAM (2010) in assuming that an average meat meal for adults contained 0.2 kg of meal.” (Green & Pain, 2012) and “If it is assumed that a typical game meal includes 200 g of meat (EFSA 2010)” and “EFSA (2010) assumed that an adult portion of game meat was 200 g” (Green & Pain, 2015). In truth, the EFSA (2010) report does not contain any suggestion that 200 g would be a typical or normal or average meat portion, as anybody who has actually read the document will know. The reasons why Green & Pain chose to insert all those untrue statements into their published papers is unexplained. It would seem that LAG member Professor Levy must have supported this use of incorrect information, because the authors note “We thank Professor Len Levy for his guidance and advice during the preparation of this paper”. All dietary information that conflicts with the modellers’ calculations has been suppressed, with no reason given. Green & Pain (2012,2015) achieved their headline results by assuming that a 2.5 year old would eat more meat in a single meal than the average UK adult consumes in a whole day, and that portions for the little toddler would be four times as large as had actually been recorded in the NDNS data. The modellers’ assumptions, endorsed by LAG members, were wildly different from the portion size information published by the National Health Service, UK Health Security Agency and British Dietetic Association. The consultation document states explicitly the “Data which have been assessed by ECHA and/or LAG as reliable are considered to be of a sufficient standard for inclusion without duplicative detailed review and analysis by the Agency”, so it would appear that HSE staff have now chosen to reject the information from health and nutrition professionals, and to rely instead on an unverified model compiled by ornithologists. Modellers, LAG members and HSE staff, acting contrary to all normal standards of scientific behaviour, have chosen to suppress all information about actual cases of lead exposure among children in UK. That information was readily available, having been obtained by health professionals and published in reports from the Surveillance of Elevated Blood-Lead in Children (SLiC), the Lead Poisoning in Children Surveillance System (LPIC) and the Lead Exposure in Children Surveillance System (LEICSS). It is notable that those surveillance studies did not report any cases of lead exposure related to game meat consumption. Lead exposure in children was generally associated with areas of deprivation and poor quality housing, whereas high-level consumers of game meat are likely to be “people with higher income and higher position in society” (FSAS, 2012). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In the 2022 version of the HSE dossier, papers authored by either Green or Pain, or issued from the LAG (of which they were key members) were referenced a total of 151 times. It appears that Green & Pain are also being employed by HSE to pass judgement on their own work. My remarks here only concern what I regard as the abysmal quality of the "scientific" evidence relating to human health topics. I cannot offer any opinion on the quaility of publications by Green, Pain or other LAG membes on wildlife or environmental topics, but hope that somebody else will be looking at them very closely indeed.

save the diversion we are talking here about your double standards of complaining then making personal remarks yourself now dodge that one!

Hi i use arken ballistic software on 12ft and .25 f.a.c. it works great so the c50 should also work great

Teague can bore out your barrels and pattern them individually for steel shot. The cost of regulating the pattern rather than just easing the chokes by measurement I think is around £125/per barrel. I’m sure a local qualified gunsmith could do it cheaper but you would have to be confident in their ability.I suppose it depends on the value of your gun in sterling or emotionally if you consider it is worth the expense.

Same up in Northumberland they are building on prime farmland in financially eay to sell areas while used/ brown field areas are being ignored ,and the councils are complicit

Conor O'Gorman - I would be grateful if you would stop peddling the "listen to the Podcast" rubbish. Other posters have listened to it, so claiming they rely on my critique is just silly. I was charitable and tried to be even handed in my post. For the record, it was amateurish, patronising and contained almost zero facts. Terry hadn't heard of barrel damage, which given his massive experience, was a bit surprising. His wellies, Carribean nonsense and replacing lead pipe on your own property were low points, but tell me which bits were better. The more you encourage people to listen to it, I suspect more will feel let down.

Swallows today ,mid Northumberland, a few days late

If GWCT failed to publish the evidence of course not ,why would I. What GWCT has said is that there is no data to confirm the extent of lead poisoning in inland non wetland areas. You have been unable to produce such data from any source so far yet you assure everyone that data exists. Do I trust you when you state that data exists? No not without producing it ,why on earth would I. As your whole premise relies on the existence of such data and that that data demonstrates significant harm to wildlife in an inland environment. Then your inability to produce such data casts doubt on all your claims along with your credibility. I don’t think it’s unfair to state that and that this whole mess has been brought upon yourself needlessly. It’s not a small handful it’s the majority of posters and with little if any posts of support for yourself

His views and experience are irrelevant what is relevant is his experience in boring and regurgitating shotguns

You print them I’ll read them Conor. You are basing your whole case on them and yet are unable to produce them. Bizarre in the extreme but I suppose just another day in the office to you. Sorry Conor I only take on those with potential and from your recent posts you’re looking a bit washed up. An early night is the best advice I can give you. It won’t look any better in the morning though.

There is no impact of lead shot on birds to any great degree we have used it for hundreds of years with no ill effect except to those shot with it. I am not part of a handful just myself!