Buzzards beaten to death!

[Taffyshooter]

We have a good few buzzards on our shoot, but compared to the likes of foxes, mink, road casualties etc. the number of poults lost to them is insignificant as far as I can make out. Gamekeepers operating outside the law are gonna bring down even more hassle for the rest of us. This has already happened in Scotland where all types of traps and snares will now have to be tagged with the owners details.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Taffyshooter

[Pole Star]

You should come and watch them here. I watch them take poults and adults day in day out.

When I cut our mowing grass a couple of weeks ago I counted 32 in the air above me.

 

As regards the adult pheasants Charlie T are you sure its not a Goshawk ? & if you have seen cock pheasants that have been taken by a hawk it almost certainly a Gos .

 

There are some keepers who will almost claim that Buzzards kill Ostriches in Safari Parks , & keepers who sensationalize such myths are as bad as the liars in the RSPB who make up lies just to get convictions .

Edited July 20, 2013 by Pole Star

[CharlieT]

Absolutely certain. You can watch them drop off fence posts and low branches onto adults.

 

However, I think that the high concentration of Buzzards, in this area at least, is due to the vast numbers of poults put down. These poults provide easy pickings and the Buzzards go on to learn how to kill adults. There is just not enough "natural" food to sustain the numbers but instead of disbursing they stay because of the easy pickings.

 

Interestingly, I have watched them on occasion try to hake hares but never with success. A few weeks ago a Crow was pecking around in some dung in the yard outside my office window. I watched a Buzzard come down on him and there was a hell of a scrap for a good 5 minutes. In the end the Crow killed the Buzzard.

[Pole Star]

Absolutely certain. You can watch them drop off fence posts and low branches onto adults.

 

However, I think that the high concentration of Buzzards, in this area at least, is due to the vast numbers of poults put down. These poults provide easy pickings and the Buzzards go on to learn how to kill adults. There is just not enough "natural" food to sustain the numbers but instead of disbursing they stay because of the easy pickings.

 

Interestingly, I have watched them on occasion try to hake hares but never with success. A few weeks ago a Crow was pecking around in some dung in the yard outside my office window. I watched a Buzzard come down on him and there was a hell of a scrap for a good 5 minutes. In the end the Crow killed the Buzzard.

 

Interesting things here Charlie that do make sense & buy the look of what you tell me there is no chance of Buzzards become scarce again , I have asked on PW before why dose some one not get some film of Buzzards at work ? then there is evidence that cannot be disputed .

 

Your comment on the crows was very interesting too because I had a farmer from Dorset phone me & a while ago & he told me in an excited fashion that he had seen 3 crows mobbing a Buzzard & the crows followed the Buzzard into a spinny & then a while later he saw the Buzzard fly out but not the crows . Later on he went down to the spinny only to find 3 blooded & wounded crows ! , he said he had never seen any thing like it in his life . Perhaps the Buzzards are evolving .

Edited July 20, 2013 by Pole Star

[HotShot!]

I also think RSPB should be prosecuted for bloody trespassing !

[denbo]

Scumbag

[al4x]

Well my sympathies with this bloke are going up we've got one hitting poults in our release pen. 5 yesterday and caught well and truly in the act. So ideas for stopping the ****** legally would be useful, we have loads of cover and its having them when they are on the small rides. One things for sure at this rate it's going to hit our small shoot fast

[pond digger 007]

Well my sympathies with this bloke are going up we've got one hitting poults in our release pen. 5 yesterday and caught well and truly in the act. So ideas for stopping the ****** legally would be useful, we have loads of cover and its having them when they are on the small rides. One things for sure at this rate it's going to hit our small shoot fast

Would it be possible to site feeders under a roof of floppy plastic netting?

[FalconFN]

Would putting large bird decoys near by? Something that could harm a buzzard like an eagle owl or geese could work, at least for a short time.

[al4x]

possible both are worth a try, it was running them into the fence at the end last night so will also try some nylon fishing line with cd's strung over, our main issue is they have a half acre pen so there is a lot of it to defend.

 

Made me think of the sausage rider on here who was suggesting its just an economic loss to shoots but at this rate its doing £16 a day if it keeps it up for long its going to proper screw our season. I'm just hoping it has an accident somewhere before it does too much

Edited July 23, 2013 by al4x

[CharlieT]

Alex

 

I feel for you.

 

The problem is that the bigger the pen the more impossible it becomes to combat them. It's one thing precluding them from small release pens measured in square yards but when pens stretch to acres it becomes all but impossible.

 

Nothing seems to work for more than a day or two. One thing worth doing is to make it impossible for them to perch and therefore drop down onto poults is to put a nail or two in the top of fence posts and put x wires above the feeders. That with CD's hanging, not too high, above feed rides is about all that seems to work.

 

I put a large owl on a post last year..............the buzzards used it as a perch after a couple of days !!

[al4x]

x wires are up, but I'll try and sort the posts and also get the feeders under cover, fortunately we have lots of laurel and nettles so the clear areas to land are few and far between. Had we not got partridge pens out I'd get the trail cam in there and try and get some video but they seem to be busy keeping track of foxes at the moment. I think part of the problem is with the area being mostly arable there isn't much ground for them to see stuff on and this one is obviously used to poults.

[Reece]

 

Agreed, we must all abide by the law and wildlife crime is no different to any other.

 

However, your analogy comparing his crime with restaurants serving cats, welding doggy cars and fraud is a little off the mark. How heartbreaking it must be for a keeper to spend his days rearing birds only to watch them, day after day being killed by BOP. It can't be a lot different to a farmer watching his corn decimated by pigeons or a shepard watching foxes take his lambs. Except in those cases the law allows him to kill the pigeons and the fox.

 

Despite buzzard numbers being at an all time high and far from threatened it is almost impossible to get a license to cull. If we truly wish to put a stop to the illegal killing of buzzards the first step should be for NE to be more realistic in the issuing of cull licenses and for the RSPB to stop campaigning for BOP at the expense of other wildlife.

 

Perhaps then someone like this keeper could have got a license to cull them rather than resorting to breaking the law.

 

It is weird that the RSPB has opposed studies into non lethal buzzard control. Had that study been allowed, it would have helped solve raptor persecution. But instead the media sensationalised it and it got stopped. Weird because no lethal control had been proposed, but people seemed to think it had been. Same with the recent buzzard license that was granted to allow destruction of 4 nests.

 

People like the RSPB need to realise that more non lethal control methods are going to have to be a part of the solution. Opposing non lethal control while buzzards remain strictly protected is unreasonable, and it is not up to conservationists to oppose sustainable practices.

[Reece]

I've heard that one way to reduce the impact of buzzards is to, when cutting woodland rides, try to cut the rides in an uneven, almost zig-zag shape. A long, straight ride is unsafe for poults, but because of the large wingspan of buzzards, zig-zag rides cause the buzzards difficulty when trying to get the poults. Does anyone know if that works or not?

[CharlieT]

I've heard that one way to reduce the impact of buzzards is to, when cutting woodland rides, try to cut the rides in an uneven, almost zig-zag shape. A long, straight ride is unsafe for poults, but because of the large wingspan of buzzards, zig-zag rides cause the buzzards difficulty when trying to get the poults. Does anyone know if that works or not?

The problem is that Buzzards are lazy birds and unlike Peregrines or Sparrowhawks who will fly down their pray, Buzzards tend to circle and then slowly drop down on their pray or more commonly where poults are concerned perch up on a convenient branch or other roosting point and drop down from a few feet onto the poult.

For that very reason I've a smallish pen of about an acre wood with no rides cut in it, with the feeders and drinkers dotted haphazardly and they still manage to take poults.

 

One answer may be to plant large quantities of shrubs to give a permanent low canopy over the entire pen.

[pond digger 007]

It is weird that the RSPB has opposed studies into non lethal buzzard control. Had that study been allowed, it would have helped solve raptor persecution. But instead the media sensationalised it and it got stopped. Weird because no lethal control had been proposed, but people seemed to think it had been. Same with the recent buzzard license that was granted to allow destruction of 4 nests.

 

People like the RSPB need to realise that more non lethal control methods are going to have to be a part of the solution. Opposing non lethal control while buzzards remain strictly protected is unreasonable, and it is not up to conservationists to oppose sustainable practices.

Yes that is a shame. I would think some contraption linked to an electric fencer, placed where the offender was perching, might work well. Certainly farm livestock soon learn.

[scutt]

we have bird spikes on top of fence posts around the pen the type used to keep pigeons of buildings also rolls of yellow/black hazard tape(not sticky back sort but the barrier type) woven amongst the trees wont stop them but we think it helps to keep them away until the poults get wise.

[wulliewinky]

It's a shame that the police seem intent in making criminals out of men that are up against it with raptors. game keeping is a hard job made harder with the current economic climate, and the continued increase in buzzard numbers I'm not saying he was right but how many successful prosecutions have cumbria police made in the shocking amount of deer poaching that happens daily everyone knows who commits the vast amount of deer poaching throughout Cumbria yet not one man has been jailed for it ( yet one prolific poacher brags in the pup pf making £15000 plus a year from deer)the only crimes that the wildlife crime officer seems bothered about are illegal raptor deaths , maybe its because the rspb do the hard work with video evidence

Also for everyone who thinks that a buzzard will only take a odd game bird knows nothing about keeping game birds they will take poults right through to full grow hen pheasants and they will bring there fledged young to a pen to teach them to hunt its not just the problem of the poults they kill directly but the fact that birds don't feel safe in there pen and fly out , then at last light the ones that return and jug on the edge of the pens can get mopped up by mr fox . I'm not sticking up for the guy but I know what it feels like to be under pressure to produce and being unable to do anything about the continued rise in buzzards ( how many licences have been granted to control buzzard numbers ) the guy has broke the law that's a fact but at the age if 64 he may of only been jailed for 70 days but what's his chance of finding another job and most-probably home when he is released

 

Here, ere, the buzzards are like crows here in the borders.....

[TIDES EDGE]

Buzzards and dare I say it Badgers were quite rightly given protection when they became endangered, now that both have population numbers that are higher than ever before the answer is simple take away the protection and let those who want to cull them do so.

There are so many areas that are not keepered that both would continue to survive in good numbers so every one would be happy .

So how do we make this happen

[al4x]

its far from that simple, there is a license system in place but they lack the balls to issue licenses for buzzards. As for getting them on the general license no chance as they would go very fast as so many people have problems with them and they do home in on estates with game birds

[Penelope]

Feeding with dead pigeons perhaps?

 

Well my sympathies with this bloke are going up we've got one hitting poults in our release pen. 5 yesterday and caught well and truly in the act. So ideas for stopping the ****** legally would be useful, we have loads of cover and its having them when they are on the small rides. One things for sure at this rate it's going to hit our small shoot fast

[andrewluke]

Feeding with dead pigeons perhaps?

 

 

 

make sure that the pigeons dont contain lead shot,

 

 

andrew

[CharlieT]

 

 

make sure that the pigeons dont contain lead shot,

 

 

andrew

As the Tesco advert says, "every little helps"

[Scully]

Badgers were quite rightly given protection when they became endangered.

I may be mistaken,but I think Badgers were given protection to combat Badger-baiting.I'm not sure if they were ever endangered.

[mark g]

best thing i have found to deter them is ravens, we have 2 broods of young ravens near our largest pens and when they are around the buzzrads just disappear, i dont know if they take young buzzards but i would think they do, ravens are increasing rapidly here and dont seem to bother the birds much