Sparrow Hawk Cull

[anser2]

But Charlie you have honey buzzards in your area , how would you tell the diffrence in flight between a honey buzzard and a common buzzard. Its not easy. I have both species in my woods and its not easy telling them apart , sometimes almost impossible.

 

deerstalker 8 common buzzards in the air at once is average for us and I have seen up to 27 feeding on worms following the plough sometimes. The common buzzards are no problem to game in our area , indeed my local keepers puts out rabbit guts for them in winter. 3 pairs breed in my wood and a further 10 pairs within a few miles and yet a local wild bird shoots manage 10 shoots of 100-400 bird days so what is the point of wanting to cull them. I spend hours watching the buzzards every year and have yet to see them carrying any sort of game bird. Lots of rabbits , and voles , one pair hit the local crow\rook population hard this dry summer as the crows were so weak they were hardly able to fly after the drought. I found 24 crow\rook wings under their nests. The only other bird I have ever seen a buzzard kill was a coot and that was only once. But i can easily understand how some people make mistakes. I watched a honey buzzard that i swore was taking pheasant chicks ( they usualy eat amphibians and wasp grubs ) , but when we managed to get some photos what we thought were game bird chicks turned out to be large frogs with their legs dangling down.

 

I cant sort out how to post photos in this forum , but if anyone wants to send me their email address I will send them the photos so they can post them up.

 

243ack emotion has nothing to do with it , the hard facts are there if you look and read the studies. i have been studying raptors for the past 15 years spending 100s of hours every year watching them , picking up their pellets to se what they are feeding on and watching their interaction with other birds. I am not saying raptors are not a problem for a few game rearers , but habitat management is the real key to minimise the problem and i know a number of shoots where this has been done and yes raptors do take a few game birds , but with the exception of grouse its not usualy a serious problem and conpaired with the road kill of game the number of game birds taken by raptors is a tiny pewrcentage. There has been some recent work done around Thetford where a guy cycled around the surrounding roads collecting road kills. He found an average on one dead pheasant in every 11 yards of road. I know Norfolk has a good game bird population , but that clearly lies to where the real problem of game losses in happening. I know of one strech of road close to LT Walsingham where at one time I have found up to 50 squashed pheasants along a few hundred yard section. I wounder if the keeper blames his losses on the nearby harriers !

Edited February 13, 2011 by anser2

[highseas]

yes but only in regions where their is lots of them like hear and buzzard my god their is more buzzard up hear than crows!

ask the rspb and keepers have started a cull!

[Chard]

But Charlie you have honey buzzards in your area , how would you tell the diffrence in flight between a honey buzzard and a common buzzard. Its not easy. I have both species in my woods and its not easy telling them apart , sometimes almost impossible.

 

deerstalker 8 common buzzards in the air at once is average for us and I have seen up to 27 feeding on worms following the plough sometimes. The common buzzards are no problem to game in our area , indeed my local keepers puts out rabbit guts for them in winter. 3 pairs breed in my wood and a further 10 pairs within a few miles and yet a local wild bird shoots manage 10 shoots of 100-400 bird days so what is the point of wanting to cull them. I spend hours watching the buzzards every year and have yet to see them carrying any sort of game bird. Lots of rabbits , and voles , one pair hit the local crow\rook population hard this dry summer as the crows were so weak they were hardly able to fly after the drought. I found 24 crow\rook wings under their nests. The only other bird I have ever seen a buzzard kill was a coot and that was only once. But i can easily understand how some people make mistakes. I watched a honey buzzard that i swore was taking pheasant chicks ( they usualy eat amphibians and wasp grubs ) , but when we managed to get some photos what we thought were game bird chicks turned out to be large frogs with their legs dangling down.

 

I cant sort out how to post photos in this forum , but if anyone wants to send me their email address I will send them the photos so they can post them up.

 

243ack emotion has nothing to do with it , the hard facts are there if you look and read the studies. i have been studying raptors for the past 15 years spending 100s of hours every year watching them , picking up their pellets to se what they are feeding on and watching their interaction with other birds. I am not saying raptors are not a problem for a few game rearers , but habitat management is the real key to minimise the problem and i know a number of shoots where this has been done and yes raptors do take a few game birds , but with the exception of grouse its not usualy a serious problem and conpaired with the road kill of game the number of game birds taken by raptors is a tiny pewrcentage. There has been some recent work done around Thetford where a guy cycled around the surrounding roads collecting road kills. He found an average on one dead pheasant in every 11 yards of road. I know Norfolk has a good game bird population , but that clearly lies to where the real problem of game losses in happening. I know of one strech of road close to LT Walsingham where at one time I have found up to 50 squashed pheasants along a few hundred yard section. I wounder if the keeper blames his losses on the nearby harriers !

 

 

Good post chap, but you're wasting your breath. There's none so blind as those that won't see.

 

I've had this for years, they always "know best" and sooner or later they'll wheel out the **** about not knowing what you're talking about because you don't live on a ******* farm.

 

These experts who can't tell the difference between bird species could never exercise restraint if they were even given the sniff of an opportunity for a "cull". "Cull" means "eradication", just like the old days, when anything with a hooked beak was fair game.

[dicehorn]

.

 

In contrast corvids take young birds and eggs for a limited part of the year ( the breeding season )

 

Well I've learnt something - all my books state the rook eats vegetation and grubs but not eggs and young birds

[anser2]

Dice horn by corvids i was refering to all the crow family. Rooks are mainly insect and plant eaters , but will take eggs if they find them , but most rooks do not search for nests as keenly as crows\magpies ect. Many years ago i used to know a keeper ( now long passed on ) who used to put out treated eggs for crows and every year he would kill a few rooks as well. So no doubt they will sometimes take eggs.

Edited February 13, 2011 by anser2

[CharlieT]

Good post chap, but you're wasting your breath. There's none so blind as those that won't see.

 

I've had this for years, they always "know best" and sooner or later they'll wheel out the **** about not knowing what you're talking about because you don't live on a ******* farm.

 

These experts who can't tell the difference between bird species could never exercise restraint if they were even given the sniff of an opportunity for a "cull". "Cull" means "eradication", just like the old days, when anything with a hooked beak was fair game.

 

 

Well all I can say is this expert, who has lived and worked a farm all his life and therefore must know best, is able differentiate between species (as I would hope all shooters can), and does not need to resort to using silly stars to represent bad language or use childish silly faces to express himself.

 

If you are going to join in this debate, a debate which some feel has some merritt and needs addressing, please don't ruin it with Chardish posts like this.

[FalconFN]

Some may say yor avatar is, erm, somewhat less than mature... unless you are that bikini-clad young lady. In which case sorry, and hello.

 

But seriously, I didn't think the GL allows shooting corvids to protect songbirds, I may be wrong but I was under the impression crop protection and health were the conditions.

Edited February 14, 2011 by FalconFN

[highseas]

Well I've learnt something - all my books state the rook eats vegetation and grubs but not eggs and young birds

in all the rspb books buzzard ean nothing but worms and road kill!

i dont belive they go looking for nests or young like say crows but will have a go if they find them

[Albertan_J]

I must have been dreaming when I saw a buzzard fly down and take a dead pigeon off my cradle out of the pattern last month then. I was out on Saturday in North Yorkshire and there were five buzzards in the sky playing. I must admit it was great to watch and at the same time I counted five pairs of English Partridge that hadn't been introduced so I don't really know what harm they are doing but having a cull on anything needs to be a decision taken at a more informed and impartial level.