What a carrion...

A safe haven for much-loved waders is something to crow about, Mr Packham, says Robin Scott

You can bank on the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List to throw up a rich assortment of recipients, ranging from the thoroughly deserving to the seemingly ridiculous.

The perceived worthiness of each new batch of gong-getters will all depend on our point of view, not to say prejudices.

For instance, what’s your take on the CBE awarded to TV naturalist and anti-fieldsports propagandist Chris Packham?

To a man and woman, every shooter and hunter I heard talk about the award rolled their eyes in disbelief. And some of the language used was decidedly fruity, to say the least. Such a strong reaction to the man’s good fortune is rooted, of course, in the apparent free rein he’s given to use TV to air his bias and hatred for fieldsports whenever the fancy takes him. Worse, there’s never a right of reply.

Yet like him or not – and to cut the chap some slack – Mr Packham is a knowledgeable naturalist with a number of awards for the quality of his documentaries. However, as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Mr Packham will be expected to live up to a code of chivalry that includes politeness, honesty and kind behaviour.

Let’s not hold our breath...

Voice

On winning the award he said: “In an age where illegal fox hunting, the continued persecution of birds of prey and the unscientific, uneconomic and inhumane killing of badgers continue, our wildlife needs a voice to shout above the noise. Maybe the silent have spoken, maybe a terrified fox, a wounded hen harrier or a trapped badger whispered, and this is their

thanks. I’ll take that, say ‘ta very much’ and stop shouting… and start screaming… and I won’t stop until the killing stops.”

Joke

All of which reminds me of an old Jethro joke about the honours: “A farmer was spotted by one of his friends standing motionless in a cow pasture and he was still there two days later. By now, deeply concerned, the pal climbed a fence and walked across to his neighbour. ‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ he asked. To which the farmer replied: ‘I’m waiting for my OBE; so go away.’

‘OBE?’ said the friend. ‘Yes’ said the farmer. ‘I read in the paper that if you’re out, standing in your field, you will get an OBE’.”

If that’s true, maybe this time next year we will all be off to Buck Palace to collect ours.

For the next couple of weeks I’m certainly going to be out standing in the fields, trying to shoot enough rabbits and woodpigeon to keep the live crow trap fully baited. Everything will go into the freezer to keep me going into early summer.

Predators

Last year was well nigh a disaster. I didn’t see any sign of myxomatosis, but the rabbit population crashed seemingly overnight and the resident woodies that can usually be relied on winged off to goodness knows where. I managed to scrounge a dead lamb from a neighbour to keep the corvids going but when this had been pecked to the bones I had to resort to scraping up road kill.

After spotting potential fodder, then pulling onto the grass verge with hazard warning lights flashing to alert other drivers, I came close a time or two to ending up as carrion myself.

Do crows eat dead humans? You tell me. What I did discover is that for some reason or other they don’t greatly care for bloated badgers or flattened foxes – no matter how ‘ripe’ they are. I wonder if this is because even in death they are still seen as predators to be avoided?

Be that as it may, keeping the traps going and the crows supplied with fresh water and rotten meat in the dead of night is a time-consuming job; to the point where I sometimes think: “Why bother?”

If it were just a case of making sure there are sufficient pheasants and partridge on the place to flush on my two small walkabout days each season, then I would simply release a few more poults.

But since crow and magpie control started here five years ago, we haven’t needed to supplement the stock of game in this way; as long as the weather at hatching time is good, there’s now a reasonable number of wild birds mixing in with the few I do release, and those from a neighbouring shoot.

More importantly, songbird numbers have rocketed in this time.

Plan

Tree planting, extensive hedgerow restoration, development of wetland habitat and the creation of wild-flower meadows at my sister’s behest – and expense – have helped enormously. But predator control (albeit at amateur level) is integral to her long-term conservation plan. And it’s having an impact.

From a shooter’s point of view I would like to say the work underway will create a welcome haven for resident game and a better shoot, but my sister’s overriding aim, indeed mission, is to preserve, then increase the number of endangered curlew and green plover nesting here each year. Shooting doesn’t float her boat in any shape or form. But we rub along well. Predator control benefits both parties.

Sadly, neither of us can do anything about the hen harriers, pictured above, goshawks, ravens and other birds of prey now being drawn like a magnet to this improving wildlife haven.

With a bit of luck – and a lot of hard work, we just might be able to give these waders some welcome and desperately needed respite from constant attack by carrions.

Maybe ‘Commander’ Packham has a workable solution to this pitiful spectacle that is played out each spring in our precious countryside. If so, I’m sure everyone with a fondness for the curlew and plover would love to hear about it.

“I came close a time or two to ending up as carrion myself”