Your Warners Group Publications plc, Studio 2, 3rd Floor, 40 Cumberland Road, London N22 7SG letters@birdwatch.co.uk letters & photos
Stop the slaughter
Ior email www.facebook.com/birdwatchmagazine @BirdwatchExtra read Holidays from hell by Natalino Fenech (Birdwatch 339: 3841) with a feeling of great sadness. I first visited the Camargue at the age of 15 in August 1966. One day we found a road lined with cars and shooters for at least a mile. Finding a space, we pulled in and asked what was happening. “It is La grande chasse,” we were told, and from looks on the shooters’ faces our presence was not welcome.
It was not long before we could hear noise from a line of beaters, and birds started to fly towards us. A flock of Eurasian Teal overhead was met with a fusillade of shots, but were far too high; a party of Wood Sandpipers, a Greenshank, a Garganey and Mallards were not so lucky, neither was a Little Egret. As a flock of
I predict a riot!
Send your letters, photos and Q&As to Rebecca Armstrong, Editor, at:
ON the morning of 23 September, in the pouring rain, we experienced an avian riot. We had birds galore flying feverishly across the garden, in and out of the trees, raiding my dying pea and bean plants, squabbling, gathering in our dead cedar tree and chasing each other through shrubs. I have never seen so much bird activity in one day.
We live near Gateshead at the head of a valley. We have a big garden with lots of trees. Most of the time our chief visitors are crows, Blackbirds, Collared Doves, gulls, Magpies, Coal Tits and sometimes House Sparrows. On this occasion, there was also a trio of thrushes, several Jays, Eurasian Treecreeper, our faithful European Robin, Chaffinches, Blue Tits, a Goldfinch and many more Magpies than usual.
Was 23 September an epiphany flight day? The weather was really foul, but the birds seemed utterly unphased by the downpour and they appeared to be having a truly wild time. Did anyone else observe such behaviour? Jennifer Barford, via email
Remarkable Wryneck
HEADING to Bridlington for the weekend, I stopped halfway for a coffee. I starting reading an article about Wrynecks, which made me realise I had never seen one.
The day before a friend had told me that he had been to Spurn, East Yorkshire, to see the young Wryneck in the car park. A first hesitant as to whether I should call into Spurn on the way home, I decided I had to go and see this famous bird. Thanks to my BirdGuides app, I easily 45 pratincoles and a number of European Bee-eaters approached, shotgun pellets rained out of the sky, landing on us and our car, and we left.
Although legislation is in place, persecution continues and shooting is increasing, with hunters able to travel where they wish to shoot, often without any checks on the numbers or species killed. Wildlife is an integral part of the wealth of a nation and the appreciation and respect for that wildlife is indicative of a civilised society, yet wholesale slaughter continues.
Governments need to be made aware that the vast majority of people do not support shooting wild animals and the minority that do shoot have a negative effect on the wealth of their nation’s wildlife. Peter Treloar, via email