Red kite siting.

[Mice!]

3 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Lots of them round here, no pigeons, sparrows, thrushes, finches etc anymore, but lots of kites.  Makes you wonder doesn't it?

Sounds to me more like corvids and squirrels, I've had several nests done in my garden by the local magpies. I don't doubt a kite will eat what ever it can find but can't them them impacting sparrows thrushes and inches, pigeons yes, easier to spot the nest and parents coming and going.

[anser2]

Of course, Kites will take whatever they can, but the impact they have on song\game birds is very limited. Clearly, when you have a decline in the number of insects, the main food for so many of our birds it will have a knock-on effect on the number of birds both game and song, that an area can support. Just think back to the 1960s and 70s when if you took a drive almost anywhere in the countryside on a fine evening at sunset you would have to stop every now and then to clear the hundreds of squashed insects of the windscreen that were impairing your vision to drive. This can still happen today, usually in wetland areas, but it's rare and restricted to a few hot spots. There are just not the insects in the UK there were 50 years ago. And the reasons obvious. Look at the average arable field. 50 years ago they were full of a variety of wildflowers all, nectar sources for insects and food for their caterpillars. Now you see fields with just one plant growing in them- the crop. And something many forget is that from partridges to finches, most birds depend on insects to feed their young, even if they only eat plants as adults. Modern economics in farming demand that most wheat and barley is sown in autumn, so we have far few winter stubbles. And many of the stubbles that do remain have been sprayed with Roundup and there is hardly a growing weed in them. No weed seeds and a major food source for partridges has gone. We are in the strange situation in the UK where most rare birds are doing quite well while most farmland birds are in freefall decline. A rare bird such as an avocet or bittern has a specialized habitat and that habitat is quite easy to reproduce or protect. In contrast, changing vast areas of farmland to allow more insects is a very different story because most farmers do not want the insects or weeds and if your crop is full of weeds or pests then it no longer becomes economic to grow the crop. The other thing that has changed is field size. Hedgerows grubbed out and trees felled to increase the growing area or allow the use of huge harvesters have reduced huge areas of wildlife habitat to the extent that most farms will no longer support a thriving gamebird population depending on reared birds and extensive feeding to maintain a high enough gamebird population to support driven shooting. Of course there a host of other factors also causing habitat loss from building development to new roads and these days disturbance is becoming an increasing problem for larger birds as people have more leisure time and seem to think the right roam act gives them the right to go anywhere with their dogs. Yes, raptors do have an impact on wild birds but compared to other problems song\game birds face its a fairly low impact.

Edited May 30, 2018 by anser2

[ClemFandango]

9 hours ago, anser2 said:

Of course, Kites will take whatever they can, but the impact they have on song\game birds is very limited. Clearly, when you have a decline in the number of insects, the main food for so many of our birds it will have a knock-on effect on the number of birds both game and song, that an area can support. Just think back to the 1960s and 70s when if you took a drive almost anywhere in the countryside on a fine evening at sunset you would have to stop every now and then to clear the hundreds of squashed insects of the windscreen that were impairing your vision to drive. This can still happen today, usually in wetland areas, but it's rare and restricted to a few hot spots. There are just not the insects in the UK there were 50 years ago. And the reasons obvious. Look at the average arable field. 50 years ago they were full of a variety of wildflowers all, nectar sources for insects and food for their caterpillars. Now you see fields with just one plant growing in them- the crop. And something many forget is that from partridges to finches, most birds depend on insects to feed their young, even if they only eat plants as adults. Modern economics in farming demand that most wheat and barley is sown in autumn, so we have far few winter stubbles. And many of the stubbles that do remain have been sprayed with Roundup and there is hardly a growing weed in them. No weed seeds and a major food source for partridges has gone. We are in the strange situation in the UK where most rare birds are doing quite well while most farmland birds are in freefall decline. A rare bird such as an avocet or bittern has a specialized habitat and that habitat is quite easy to reproduce or protect. In contrast, changing vast areas of farmland to allow more insects is a very different story because most farmers do not want the insects or weeds and if your crop is full of weeds or pests then it no longer becomes economic to grow the crop. The other thing that has changed is field size. Hedgerows grubbed out and trees felled to increase the growing area or allow the use of huge harvesters have reduced huge areas of wildlife habitat to the extent that most farms will no longer support a thriving gamebird population depending on reared birds and extensive feeding to maintain a high enough gamebird population to support driven shooting. Of course there a host of other factors also causing habitat loss from building development to new roads and these days disturbance is becoming an increasing problem for larger birds as people have more leisure time and seem to think the right roam act gives them the right to go anywhere with their dogs. Yes, raptors do have an impact on wild birds but compared to other problems song\game birds face its a fairly low impact.

Well observed and eloquently presented. 

Thank you. 

[anser2]

On 29/05/2018 at 14:33, figgy said:

Maybe but it didn't look like a kestrel. Full triangle tail shape and was up quite high just riding the thermals like a buzzard would.

Flying raptors are never easy to ID unless they are close to you. 

There is a great quote in Colins Bird Guide "Do not hope for or pretend reliable ID of birds of prey in the field- EVER.          And this is a book for experts.

I have seen kestrels that on closer inspection have turned into sparrowhawks common buzzards that have later been proved to be honey buzzards and one day on the coast saw a raptor coming in off the sea about a mile away , that all 3 of the experts swore was a goshawk when first seen, later changed their minds to a common buzzard as it flew inland only for it to return overhead and become a marsh harrier. Raptors are very good at changing their tail or wing shape according to weather conditions or if its displaying. Unless you get very good views its very easy to make a mistake.

Edited May 31, 2018 by anser2

[pycoed]

@clemfandango, if you are involved in red kite monitoring for 7 years you should know better than to be so definite in your denials of behaviour. Never say "never".

Perceived wisdom is that kites' talons are too small to do serious damage, yet one of our local kites (nesting in a Scots pine not 150 yds from my computer) killed a neighbour's Light Sussex cockerel in his run. Whether the same kite or not, another pulled the head off a Copper Black Maran hen of mine in my bottom field a couple of weeks later whilst I was just too slow to intervene.

Again, kestrels won't tackle magpies. Yet I watched one that I first took to be a sparrowhawk grab one in a roadside hedgerow. When I approached & stopped the truck,  I was no more than 6 feet from a kestrel! happily killing the magpie on the verge.

 

[Yellow Bear]

IT is blatantly obvious to any countryman/countrywoman that anyone who considers that the total protection, artificial feeding, and encouragement to increase the numbers of any predatory/omnivorous species, be it avian or mammalian, does not have a significant negative effect on other species that may be a food source and/or competitor is living in cloud cuckoo land.  Most realize that some farming practices have had an impact but this is not the simple reason the packamistas blame, as the problem is also present where major farming changes to big fields etc.have not happened to any extent but the protection has.  This is from observation not scientific surveys by vested interests.

[anser2]

1 hour ago, Yellow Bear said:

IT is blatantly obvious to any countryman/countrywoman that anyone who considers that the total protection, artificial feeding, and encouragement to increase the numbers of any predatory/omnivorous species, be it avian or mammalian, does not have a significant negative effect on other species that may be a food source and/or competitor is living in cloud cuckoo land.  Most realize that some farming practices have had an impact but this is not the simple reason the packamistas blame, as the problem is also present where major farming changes to big fields etc.have not happened to any extent but the protection has.  This is from observation not scientific surveys by vested interests.

You really do not get it do you . Let me be more simple. The most important factor controlling any species is food supply. IF the food level is not high enough then a species cannot survive. Back at the start of the last century the food supply on the average farm was high enough to support a wide range of birds including partridges for severl reasons. Perhaps most important was that there were no pesticides or weedkillers. Insects thrived to such a degree that they sometimes threatened to destroy the crops or at least dammage it. With this superabundance of insects game bird chick survival was very high. Other factors were longer periods when there was a crop in the field ( thus food ) as old crops to longer to mature. In Norfolk harvest was from mid August until well into September and with harvest being so late most stubbles were left until the New Year before being ploughed in. All that time they were full of food for game and song  birds.  Another factor has been the demise of the mixed farm. Most farms kept a range livestock in addition to growing crops. Livestock need grazing fields, drinking ponds and hedgerows as fences. So there was a choice of habitats for the birds to move into when the fields were ploughed, all providing food for game. Increasingly from the 1950s farms split into livestock farming, mainly in the west and arable mainly in the east with very few mixed farms. The limited superabundance of food an arable field produced is lost once the field is ploughed , these days often within hours of the field being harvested. As a result the arable fields were nearly empty of food after the harvest and with no livestock there is no alternate habbit for the birds to move to.  In the livestock farms new grass types have been developed that hold very little food for game birds. In short modern farming does not allow natural game bird food to be present in quantity needed to sustain a wild bird population. Hence almost every shoot these days has to rear birds and feed them through the year. Wild game have a pretty good idea how to avoid raptors and the losses are usually small. In contrast, reared birds have not had the natural caution inbred into them while with the hen and can be more open to losses. But losses or not if there is a lack of natural food, the birds have to take risks to get it. The key to a strong population of game birds is an abundant natural food source and in such places, losses to predation will be very low.

 

I often shoot on a wild pheasant shoot which includes 400 acres of ancient woodland 600 acres of pine plantation and a500 acre organic farm and 1000 acres of modern arable farming with livestock ( cattle and sheep with free range chickens. The woods are well known for their very large populations of insects with over 500 species of beetles and 600 species of moths ( all good bird food ) so far. The woods are a reserve although limited driven shooting is allowed. The estate has 4-5 shoots a season and each day usually produces well over a  hundred pheasants. a sprinkling of French partridges and plenty of woodcock , though we no longer shoot them. English partridges are protected, but their numbers are building well, there is a very healthy number of hares , though the rabbits have dropped from plague numbers to a handful due to the new disease. The woods hold around 10 pairs of common buzzards, 4 pairs of kestrels, 8 pairs of sparrowhawks and a pair of hobby plus of course foxes. There is no gamekeeper and only the foxes are controlled. In winter its not unusual to see 30+ red kites, common buzzards, harriers and goshawks over the woods at the same time and yet the estate still holds a good head of game. Why? because the natural food is there. Once the modern farm has finish harvested the game move into the grass fields woods and organic farm which are full of natural food and clearly the presence of a high population of raptors has little impact on the wild game population on the estate. So no I do not live in cloud cuckoo land I enjoy shooting on an estate that still mainly farms in the old traditional way and holds a large gamebird population and at the same time I can enjoy watching numbers of raptors while we waiting for the first pheasant to be driven over.

Road traffic deaths is a far more significant cause of game bird deaths that raptors. A few years ago a roadkill study was done over several hundred miles of Norfolk and Suffolk rural roads and a dead pheasant was found on average every 5 Metres of road. Given the thousands of miles of Norfolk\Suffolk roads thats many more than all the areas raptors could eat.

Edited May 31, 2018 by anser2

[ClemFandango]

3 hours ago, pycoed said:

@clemfandango, if you are involved in red kite monitoring for 7 years you should know better than to be so definite in your denials of behaviour. Never say "never".

Perceived wisdom is that kites' talons are too small to do serious damage, yet one of our local kites (nesting in a Scots pine not 150 yds from my computer) killed a neighbour's Light Sussex cockerel in his run. Whether the same kite or not, another pulled the head off a Copper Black Maran hen of mine in my bottom field a couple of weeks later whilst I was just too slow to intervene.

Again, kestrels won't tackle magpies. Yet I watched one that I first took to be a sparrowhawk grab one in a roadside hedgerow. When I approached & stopped the truck,  I was no more than 6 feet from a kestrel! happily killing the magpie on the verge.

 

I didn't say never. I finished up saying I thought it was unlikely but I'd take his word for it.

I appreciate the point you are trying to make but often some of the stuff levelled at Kites are a case of mistaken identity. Or just totally made up, for example I had a farmer try to tell me that Red Kites were killing his lambs! 

Red kites talons are incredibly weak, having handled adult birds without wearing gloves I haven't had them break skin once, they don't have the strength. Buzzard chicks on the other hand, even when fluffy can break skin through my climbing gloves. 

[scotslad]

Ur earlier post was spot on anser, BUT i also agee with much of wot Yellow bear has said too.

I do think ur post above is not really true for all palces well definately not in my area where land/climate is average to poor.

Whereever that farm is u shot on its bucking about every piece of research ever done on game rearing (infact i would bet the birds are coming in from elswhere??)

 

In my area farming has changed very little since the 70's, very few hedges ripped out, still plenty of wet rashy fields or field corners.

When u get above 150m or so farming has hardly changed at all over the whole of UK, apart from quads bikes and less staff.yet birds numbers still plummetting

I can go to 2 almost identical average upland sheep farms the only difference is 1 is near grouse coutry and has a decent low ground keeper on it, it has loads of waders fledging young every single year, fields are absolutely alive with them, roundabout my house u hardly see a wader nowadays all been ate (which is backed up by GWCT's Otterburn study)

 

U also say feed is key and while ur right, i'm involved with a local wildlife trust and its reserve, i have long argued despite the work the reserve manager puts in it is actualy doing more harm for local wildlife than good.

Sounds crazy to say as its a great reserve, but it has not feldged a mallard chick now (or any other ground nesting chick) for 5 or 6  years now, thats not sustainable despite having a resident population of 50+, feed allyear round withsome quite nice habitat.

In fact all we have created is a gaint buffet for every predtor under the sun, not unusual to pick up 4-60 burst duck eggs every week, the photographers odten get some cracking stoat photos

I've been at the rest of comitee for years to let me kill a handful of crows which is all it would take, but they won't allow it

 

It really is not rocket science, even the gwct old fashioned 3 legged milking stool approach, feed, habitat and safety from predators, take any leg away it falls over

 

To be fair to RK i think they will be far more carrion based than most BoP, but there is only so much carrion available, so wot are all the other alleged carrion eaters going to do?? The buzzards, badgers and foxes.

Which ever way u cut it, every animal needs to eat 'X' ammount of calories per day, there is only a limtied ammount of calories u can take out of eack ecosystem, in the UK i'd say we're pretty close to it if not ove it now

Ps I seen a stat earlier from rspb about being 11million cats but they only kill 1 million birds, i finf that very very hard to believe, thats only 1 bird per 10 cats per year??

I know not every cat will kill birds but i would geuss a massive % will kill atleast 1 bird in a year, i bet many are killing 1 bird a week the now at this time of year

[old'un]

1 hour ago, anser2 said:

You really do not get it do you . Let me be more simple. The most important factor controlling any species is food supply. IF the food level is not high enough then a species cannot survive. Back at the start of the last century the food supply on the average farm was high enough to support a wide range of birds including partridges for severl reasons. Perhaps most important was that there were no pesticides or weedkillers. Insects thrived to such a degree that they sometimes threatened to destroy the crops or at least dammage it. With this superabundance of insects game bird chick survival was very high. Other factors were longer periods when there was a crop in the field ( thus food ) as old crops to longer to mature. In Norfolk harvest was from mid August until well into September and with harvest being so late most stubbles were left until the New Year before being ploughed in. All that time they were full of food for game and song  birds.  Another factor has been the demise of the mixed farm. Most farms kept a range livestock in addition to growing crops. Livestock need grazing fields, drinking ponds and hedgerows as fences. So there was a choice of habitats for the birds to move into when the fields were ploughed, all providing food for game. Increasingly from the 1950s farms split into livestock farming, mainly in the west and arable mainly in the east with very few mixed farms. The limited superabundance of food an arable field produced is lost once the field is ploughed , these days often within hours of the field being harvested. As a result the arable fields were nearly empty of food after the harvest and with no livestock there is no alternate habbit for the birds to move to.  In the livestock farms new grass types have been developed that hold very little food for game birds. In short modern farming does not allow natural game bird food to be present in quantity needed to sustain a wild bird population. Hence almost every shoot these days has to rear birds and feed them through the year. Wild game have a pretty good idea how to avoid raptors and the losses are usually small. In contrast, reared birds have not had the natural caution inbred into them while with the hen and can be more open to losses. But losses or not if there is a lack of natural food, the birds have to take risks to get it. The key to a strong population of game birds is an abundant natural food source and in such places, losses to predation will be very low.

 

I often shoot on a wild pheasant shoot which includes 400 acres of ancient woodland 600 acres of pine plantation and a500 acre organic farm and 1000 acres of modern arable farming with livestock ( cattle and sheep with free range chickens. The woods are well known for their very large populations of insects with over 500 species of beetles and 600 species of moths ( all good bird food ) so far. The woods are a reserve although limited driven shooting is allowed. The estate has 4-5 shoots a season and each day usually produces well over a  hundred pheasants. a sprinkling of French partridges and plenty of woodcock , though we no longer shoot them. English partridges are protected, but their numbers are building well, there is a very healthy number of hares , though the rabbits have dropped from plague numbers to a handful due to the new disease. The woods hold around 10 pairs of common buzzards, 4 pairs of kestrels, 8 pairs of sparrowhawks and a pair of hobby plus of course foxes. There is no gamekeeper and only the foxes are controlled. In winter its not unusual to see 30+ red kites, common buzzards, harriers and goshawks over the woods at the same time and yet the estate still holds a good head of game. Why? because the natural food is there. Once the modern farm has finish harvested the game move into the grass fields woods and organic farm which are full of natural food and clearly the presence of a high population of raptors has little impact on the wild game population on the estate. So no I do not live in cloud cuckoo land I enjoy shooting on an estate that still mainly farms in the old traditional way and holds a large gamebird population and at the same time I can enjoy watching numbers of raptors while we waiting for the first pheasant to be driven over.

Road traffic deaths is a far more significant cause of game bird deaths that raptors. A few years ago a roadkill study was done over several hundred miles of Norfolk and Suffolk rural roads and a dead pheasant was found on average every 5 Metres of road. Given the thousands of miles of Norfolk\Suffolk roads thats many more than all the areas raptors could eat.

The following extract is taken from Dr Ian Newton's book 'The Sparrowhawk'

The average food consumption has been measured at around 40 to 50 grams (1.4 to 1.8 ounces) per day for males and 50 - 70 grams 1.8 to 2.5 ounces) per day for the larger females, depending partly on their activity.

The number of carcases needed to provide this ration varies with their size, but it is the equivalent to about two and three sparrows per day respectively for each sex.

Over a whole year total food intake amounts to around 16.5 kg (36 pounds) of meat for a male and 22 kg (48 pounds) for a female.

Added to the needs of breeding, a successful Sparowhawk pair could account for 55 kg (121 pounds) of meat in a year. This is equivalent to about 2200 House Sparrows, or 600 Blackbirds, or 110 Wood Pigeons.

 

And you say you have 8 pairs of sparrowhawks in your woods, I am amazed there are any birds left on the estate.

[Yellow Bear]

You beat me to it Scotlad - I now live on the edge of the Derbyshire Dales, another area where farming is pretty static, and whilst I have only been in residence 5 years the inlaws were here for 35 before that so we were visitors on very regular basis and the FIL was a keen naturalist so we discussed wildlife regularly.  Even 10 years ago there were large flocks of lapwing and numerous  curlew on the moors as well as partridge at lower levels.  Hogs were also plentiful.

Apart from legislation giving blanket protection to predatory species and the reintroduction of some of these to the area, virtually nothing  has changed but I have seen only 3 or 4 lapwing and 2 curlew this year and it is 4 years since I last saw a hog, even roadkill,  let alone in the garden where several used to live, even before it went "natural". Songbirds are doing better, but even these started to reduce the last couple of years even with food plentiful.  The things that have increased are:

buzzards, where there used to be a pair, it is now not unusual to see about 15:

corvids, several of the local farmers have requested we shoot corvids over the pasture where lapwing are nesting:

 badgers where in the local area there used to be 2 sets there are now about six I have been told, and I am told by those who are more on the uplands than me they are moving up there in numbers

In addition where food is reduced by farming methods to the detriment of prey species the predator population will still take the same numbers , particularly where there numbers are  "boosted and maintained" by"artificial" means.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Yellow Bear

[scotslad]

When u get into the upland or poorer farmland environments the habitat loss/change argument quickly falls away (but i can see that being an issue elsewhere)

 

It's 1 of those things that the exact reason may vary slightly from area to area but by and large it does come back to the 3 main things of habitat, feed and predation.

 

If u take oldun's numbers further and multiply that 55kg of meat per sparrowhawk pair X ammount of sparrowhawk pairs in UK + wot ever the number is for buzzards, red kites etc (which will include carrion worms)+ plus ur 11 million cats + badgers + foxes etal (a lab will eat roughly 200kg of dog food a year and thats it living in a draft proof kennel and not hunting for its food, a badger might need twice that due to its lifestyle)

I also know locally and widerspread i've never seen so few rabbits knocking about, which would be a staple diet for many predators inc a lot of carrion.

U do have problems when even rabbits are struggling to build numbers up

 

Songbird survival does a lot of work on these sort of things and is a decent charity

[Mice!]

I think there are some great comments being given here, I hadn't thought about how gummed up the windscreen used to get in spring and summer, I drive into work every evening and rarely really get that many insects on my car, I do remember years ago some"agency" could have been rspb or basc I've no idea asking folk to drive a set distance then have a look at what insects could be identified on your cars.

as for predators, the spring 2018rspb magazine makes a big deal about having three curlew chicks fledge at greenmount hill farm, the first since the 1990's the say this is because of habitat management including rush cutting tree removal and PREDATOR control, doesn't say what though.

that to me says they've been failing every year, I'll bet if they employed a game keeper they would see much better results.

Anser2 your place sounds amazing ? 

 

[anser2]

23 hours ago, old'un said:

The following extract is taken from Dr Ian Newton's book 'The Sparrowhawk'

The average food consumption has been measured at around 40 to 50 grams (1.4 to 1.8 ounces) per day for males and 50 - 70 grams 1.8 to 2.5 ounces) per day for the larger females, depending partly on their activity.

The number of carcases needed to provide this ration varies with their size, but it is the equivalent to about two and three sparrows per day respectively for each sex.

Over a whole year total food intake amounts to around 16.5 kg (36 pounds) of meat for a male and 22 kg (48 pounds) for a female.

Added to the needs of breeding, a successful Sparowhawk pair could account for 55 kg (121 pounds) of meat in a year. This is equivalent to about 2200 House Sparrows, or 600 Blackbirds, or 110 Wood Pigeons.

 

 

 

And you say you have 8 pairs of sparrowhawks in your woods, I am amazed there are any birds left on the estate.

4

I used to be a warden in an ancient woodland NNR. We had a 200 block that we surveyed for breeding birds for 20 years. During that time the number of breeding pairs of blue tits remained constant at around 40 pairs with increases in good breeding years and decreases after cold winters , but the numbers always returned to 40 pairs despite the presence of a number of raptors. We monitored fertility, fledging success and with an intense ringing program survival through the year. The highest mortality was in the first 2 months after leaving the nest with a second peak of mortality in late winter when food was short. The average number of eggs was 10 per clutch, fertility over 95% , but fledging success depended on the abundance of caterpillars in spring which in turn was related to the weather. Alongside the bird survey, we monitored the food supply estimation caterpillars by the number of droppings we recorded on 10 cm square sheets left out for a set time period and extensive moth trapping. Winter food supply was estimated by counting the amount of beech mast on the ground per Msq.

In a basic theory assuming no mortality and even sexes, 40 pairs of blue tits will produce 400 young in the first breeding season. Those young and adults will produce 2400  young in year two, 12,000 in year 3, 60,000 in year three, 300,000 in year 4 and 1.5 million by year five. So thank god for sparrowhawks otherwise we would all be wading about knee deep in blue tits. That is why birds that expect high losses lay so many eggs while those where losses are low lay fewer eggs, may not always breed every year and often do not breed until they are several years old.

Of course, that would never happen in the real world starvation, accidents and predation all take their toll on the blue tits. The area I surveyed was part of a 1000 wood and the surrounding estate has abundant oaks in the hedges and there are plenty of scrubby areas plus some blue tits will nest in holes in walls and this year I know of one pair of great tits that are nesting on a hollow gate post. Its impossible to estimate the blue tit population over the 3000 estate, but its probably around 2500 pairs and even if they only produce half the theoretical population ( its likely to be much closer to 80% of the fledglings ) thats a late summer population of around 12500 blue tits. Given that the area holds good numbers of other tit species ( High numbers of great, long tailed, coal and smaller numbers of marsh tits ) plus a huge variety of other small song birds there is more than enough food to support 8 pairs of sparrowhawks.

Clearly, something is controlling the numbers of blue tits. Predation mainly hit the birds in the weeks following fledging, but the big fall in numbers was in December to the start of the breeding season. In years of high numbers, there was always a high production of beech mast. In low blue tit years, beech mast was almost non-existent or we had prolonged snow cover covering the beech mast on the ground or the breeding season was wet and cold with reduced numbers of caterpillars. In  good blue tit years the following year were good sparrowhawk years and following poor blue tit years the numbers of sparrowhawks were also low. But always the change in tit numbers was followed the next year by fewer hawks and visa versa. The number of blue tits were controlled by the number of caterpillars and beech mast, the number of sparrowhawks was controlled by the number of blue tits. Habitat holding a good  supply of food that was the most important factor followed by predation.

The woodland bird survey survey is held in Natural England reports.

Edited June 1, 2018 by anser2

[scotslad]

While i agree with wot u've said above anser, ur comparing 1 woodland example and applying it accross the whole of the UK.

Again in ur upland/poorer soil type areas (which will account for vast aras of UK) i would imgine insect life won't have changed an awfull lot as never been an area where many insecticides sprayed about, and even now some farmers don't even dip sheep any longer (and the dip is a lot milder compared to the old OP  dips)

 

If u take the GWCT Otterburn study, i think wader breeding success rose by 300% purely due to predator conrol, no habitat management, which they proved by changing sites/keepering from area to area.

I don't know where ur wood was or its elevation. But surprising just how much easier animals have it 'down south' just due to nicer climate and longer growing seasons as ur definately seem to be getting more eggs and higher % than u get up here.

When prey birds are thriving predatations isn't that big a problem, it's worse if numbers drop due to other factors then held low by predatators

Even hardly birds like red grouse struggle far more in north scotland compared to N eng moors,

 

Also i assume ur talking about a relatively natural woodland with food/shelter spread throughout.

Nowadays in many habitats food will be sparse and concentrated in areas making it easier for some predators

[anser2]

Scots Lad I am trying to keep my reply as close to the original question and in a previous post related to game birds on the estate that are doing very well despite raptors. In the GWCT example, the predators are likely to be mainly crows and fox\rat\stoat. Crows and other corvids are kept in check to some extent by the buzzards. The remains of corvids are commonly found under buzzard nests and under one nest I found 17 rook\crow wings. 5 jay wings and a magpie wing ( not a single game bird remains). Until a couple of years ago, I never saw a buzzard take any gamebirds ( though chicks were sometimes taken ), but that has changed since the rabbit viris has almost wiped out rabbits in my area, but even so the losses are acceptable and the shooting bags have not suffered. At the moment I am looking at a coastal wetland where the wader predation can be high and indeed last year not one of the 50pairs of avocet, little ringed plover , lapwing or redshank nests\chicks survived, A few were taken by marsh harriers , but by far the worse problem was the lesser black backed and herring gulls. . Normally we only have one pair of LBB gulls resident and losses were reasonable, but last year the farmer moved his outdoor pig unit to within a few hundred yards of the wader breeding pools. The pigs attracted a large flock of gulls several hundred strong and once they had fed around the pig pens the gulls came to the pools to drink and loaf about all day until the next pig feeding time. Of course they took any wader nests \ chicks they stumbled over and cleared out the lot. In some other years we have a colony of black headed gulls on the wader scrape with over 100 pairs nesting. They are a double-edged sword. The BH Gulls are very aggressive to any potential threat to their nests by mobbing raptors ect on the wing. As long as the avocets hatch a few days before the gulls they are not touched by the BH gulls. But in some years the gulls hatch first and they then take many avocet chicks. In the long term, it generally works well. Avocets are long lived birds , up to 20 years and only need to replace their numbers once during their lifetime to maintain their population so even if they have several complete failures they have enough successful years to keep their numbers up. This spring is looking much more hopeful with the pigs moved and  10 chicks  so far and 20 nests to hatch and only 3 nests lost. Time will tell , but some years we can have up to 75 chicks fledge from the site.

Its interesting that gulls are our main nest predators and the ducks nesting in cover lose few nests. Their main problem apart from gulls is the persistent cold wind off the sea chilling the ducklings and reducing early insects. Last week when everyone else was basking in sun and hot days we were having cold wet days for weeks.

Edited June 2, 2018 by anser2

[anser2]

Quote "Nowadays in many habitats food will be sparse and concentrated in areas making it easier for some predators". That is true , but the main problem with low levels of natural food is that the game birds have to take risks to get enough food to survive. A I have said before natural food is the key to returning our wild game bird populations to the levels of 50 years ago and is something to be tackled before we start to blame raptors.  We have a chance to do this now with the government shakeup of HLS payments, but I fear they are only using their ideas to cut costs rather than help conservation.

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by anser2

[Mice!]

talking about bugs and insects, I went back into work this morning because one of the lads cars was absolutely peppered with dead stuff, I drive the length of the M55 every time I go to work, all farm land either side and get very little. He said he had been to Newcastle and his white car was covered.

[Eyefor]

On 31/05/2018 at 15:15, Mice! said:

I think there are some great comments being given here, I hadn't thought about how gummed up the windscreen used to get in spring and summer, I drive into work every evening and rarely really get that many insects on my car....

 

The Moth Snowstorm is a good read...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00N9AVN3Q/?coliid=I3KSFXHZ7ZF3K8&colid=2OLHH975ITTCT&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

(also available elsewhere!)

[welshwarrior]

We have red kite over work constantly we counted 30 odd in one field this January 

[rob-d]

we recently had a pair of prregrine falcons nesting high up on a building at work, they laid two eggs and one hatched. things were going well until the parents left the nest and within 30 seconds a magpie threw the chick to the ground (about 30m) and preceded to eat it! not kite related but i thought i would share.