Badgers, wildlife crime, and being a good citizen

Well it’s been a roller-coaster of a fortnight for me! I’m now back in gainful employment, working as a Research Assistant for the RSPB where amongst other things I realised how much fitness I’ve lost over the winter (the answer: a lot!). Today I heard the angering news that the vote to end spring hunting in Malta had failed, 51% of the voting public said ‘Yes’ the wanted to keep spring hunting and thus consigning the Turtle Dove to the annals of history. Malta is very dear to my heart and I spend two weeks volunteering every September monitoring the illegal hunting and bird migration.

However what I want to write about today is the subject of badgers. A few days before I started my new contract I decided to go birding at a local heronry, where herons have nested in trees since time immemorial. I got lost though, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong road. To get on to the correct road I turned onto the next country lane which I knew would take me to the right place. However not long after I had taken this road I came across a dead badger on the side of the road. Actually hold on a minute, it was two dead badgers of the side of the road. I quickly double checked my mirror and it was confirmed. Two dead badgers at the side of the road. I stuck my car in reverse and parked just behind the two brocks.

Two dead Badgers at Langley, Cheshire. 27/3/15

So what a curious sight. The two badgers had clearly been placed next to each other, nose to tail and facing each other. There was no sign of them being run over, no obvious broken limbs and they were obviously not squished. It was clear that crows had got to them before I had. It looked terribly suspicious. I had some idea about what to do, being both an amateur and now a professional conservationist I tried to get in contact with as many channels as possible. First, the Badger Trust who told me to ring the local Cheshire representative. I did so but it just rang out but I left a message. Next I rang the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, again it just rang out. I then rang a friend who works for the Wildlife Trust who was eager to help. She told me that the Wildlife Crime Officer from Cheshire Police was eager for people to report any suspected wildlife crime, badgers in particular. I rang the police. I got put through to Nantwich station, no use, Nantwich is 50 miles away. I tried again. I got through to Macclesfield (bingo! 3 miles). They said it wasn’t a police matter and I try the RSPCA. I’ll write that again. It wasn’t a police matter. The police who are keen for people to report wildlife crime. It wasn’t a police matter.

In the meantime the Badger Trust rep had left a message. She lived in Warrington so could do little to help. I explained the situation, she agreed it sounded suspicious, was hacked off at the police but said it was typical. She did give a more local member of the Badger Trust who lived close by, I rang her, she wasn’t in but left a message telling her where the badgers were. The RSPCA were really helpful. They wanted all the details, including my location, the description of the badgers etc etc. They said an officer would be out shortly. I got a call 20 minutes later. The officer probably wouldn’t be there until after dark. I reluctantly left the scene having promised to give copies of the photographs I took to the RSPCA.

And that’s where the trail runs cold. Not heard a thing since. Not from the RSPCA, the police, the local Badger Trust member. Nothing. No idea what happened to the badgers, whether it was foul play or just a really odd coincidence that two badgers died at the same spot at the same time. It seems that everyone is working against each other.

So we are told to do our bit for wildlife crime. Volunteer our time if we see something awry. We are told that if we see a dead badger report it to the Badger Trust so they can remove it and thus remove clues to the nearest sett. We are told to report any suspected crime to authorities. On my experience it seems like we’re crying against the wind. At the moment I’m not entirely sure if me calling the authorities made a blind bit of difference.

Joys of Spring

This week started out seriously tough. The old black dog bit me again on Sunday and then bit harder on Monday and Tuesday. Really was in a hole. I needed to climb out of it badly. So what did I do to help? I visited my local nature reserve of course. I actually tried this on Tuesday too but to no avail, my head was in the wrong place so I just wandered round seeing nothing but my own thoughts.

So on Wednesday I tried again, this time it was different, the air was fresh and spring-like, the resident birds were singing, some early flowers were in bloom (Marsh Marigold and Lesser Celandine to name two), and two dozen or so frogs were getting amorous.

Lesser Celandine at JBW.               Photo: Author

My local reserve, Jackson’s Brickworks in Poynton, is never going to be on any national websites or feature in any magazines but I love the place, especially at this time of year, as spring springs into life very obviously here. Wednesday was spring-like at Jackson’s and certainly helped me start to return to normal, but Thursday was when spring started and I felt a lot better. Why? Two notes repeated over and over.

What are the signs of spring? It could be when the first Blackbird starts to sing (in my case on the 22nd of February). Or maybe the Song Thrush (the 6th of Feb)? How about when Snowdrops start to bloom, or when crocuses take their place? Maybe it should be frogspawn, or the first bumblebee seen? Personally I love the blackbirds singing and it is a strong contender, song thrushes are a tad too early, as are snowdrops and crocuses, maybe they should be harbingers rather than signs perhaps? Frogspawn and bumblebees are definitely signs of spring but they don’t quite cut it on a visceral level for me. No, my definitive start of spring is the sound of the Chiffchaff singing, two notes repeated endlessly. Not the flutey melodious blackbird but two disyllabic sounds. Why? Because chiffchaffs are to me the first visable (and more importantly, audible) spring and summer migrants that appear at my local nature reserve. This chiffy on Thursday would have overwintered in Spain or France and migrated here last week (OK I know some overwinter on the south coast of England now as I saw on St. Agnes). It had just begun to claim its territory amongst the local wrens robins blackbirds et al.

Jackson’s Brickworks came to life on Thursday, I now eagerly await the rest of the spring migrants, swallows, house martins, willow warblers, blackcaps, and eventually swifts. Ring Ouzels will also begin to appear in the hills in the coming weeks, which is the direction I will also go as I again change from volunteer to employee. Once more I will be surveying these secretive thrushes and their habitat this spring and summer, it should be fantastic again! Wildlife really is a great anti-depressant!

What gets my goat (moth)

I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of a new blog post. Basically nothing interesting has happened since my last post. Sure spring is in the air now, although to me it hasn’t started until I hear my first singing Chiffchaff, so it is now the vague period in my mind before spring and after winter. It’s also the vague period for me in between job searching and employment. I’m going to be an RSPB employee again in just under a month but I’ve still got to look for work (that’s the government’s ‘wonderful’ Universal Credit scheme for you!). So what to write?

How about a tongue in cheek not-at-all-serious look at the things I find irritating or infuriating about wildlife conservation and volunteering? Yeah I think that’ll do, to amuse myself perhaps.. No moths involved..

OK number one: Cliques: I found this highly irritating when I was starting out doing voluntary work. There’s nothing worse than turning up on your first day as a volunteer for a new organisation or at a new site to find there are a bunch of middle-aged men who have volunteered there for decades who treat any newcomers with suspicion and like to do things a certain way thank you very much. Add to this the paid staff who treat these cliques with kid gloves and try little as possible to assimilate any new volunteer into the group.

Two: Plurals or singular? : Let me explain by paraphrasing a tweet I read yesterday. “Nice news piece on how a woodland reserve is helping willow tit.” What? Is the woodland reserve helping just one willow tit? Or many willow tits? It should read either “Nice news piece on how a woodland reserve is helping willow tits,” or “Nice piece on how a woodland reserve is helping a willow tit.” You see it all the time, especially in bird magazines “come to this nice coastal reserve to see Avocet” it might say. OK I know what it means but gods it irritates me!

Three: Bandwagons: As nature conservationists we should be concerned about all native wildlife, big little common or endangered. The little stuff feeds the big stuff (in general) and the common could become endangered if we carry on the way we are going (again, in general). But, as conservationists we like to have flavours of the month, all very worthy I may add. Be it whales, tigers, giant pandas, hen harriers etc. Now as I was involved with Hen Harrier conservation last year and am heavily aware of their persecution, but other raptors are also persecuted, Golden Eagles, White-tailed Eagles, Merlins etc. Kestrels are also in decline but I don’t see kestrel twibbons on twitter adorning profile pics, where’s the high profile Pearl-bordered Fritillary campaigns? Swifts are rapidly declining. I’m aware of the vagaries of money and prioritising but it is true in my mind that certain species feature prominently for a while before the next big things come along to take over the twitterspace.

Four: Blog posts that don’t go anywhere and are only there to keep the blog active in between more meaningful posts! (See here for details!)

Five: The ‘I know best’ volunteer: We all must have seen these. Volunteers (usually within the clique) who have their own set way of doing things and have the greatest ideas about what and more importantly (in their mind) what not to do. For instance a work party leader will organise a work party and the said ‘I know best vol’ wants to do it his/her way, and if they can’t do it won’t do it or will do it their way.

Six: We’re all a bit weird really. You never get any cool kids signing up to be conservation volunteers. We’re all a bit left field, all like a woolly jumper, we all have a political or green-organisation car sticker, fashion consists of free t-shirt acquired from various projects, we’re all a bit too geeky for our own good. How can we appeal to the general public and get everyone enthused about the world we inhabit when we appear to be in a specialist niche and proud of it?!

Seven: Pay. When you finish volunteering and decide to get a career in wildlife conservation you soon start to realise you get paid a relative pittance to do one of the most important jobs in the planet. I know people who have gone down the academic route, paid thousands for undergrads, masters, and even PHDs to then apply for a far less than £20k job. I know we do the job for love not money but the money sure helps to live off!

Anyway, rants over. I’ll add again that none of this is serious, I quite like high profile campaigns that grabs people’s attention and can provide a focus for wider areas if done properly. Also none of this is in a particular order, just the order in which it came into my head than down onto the keyboard.

Wading Inspiration

A couple of weeks ago I attended a talk at CAWOS, my local ornithological society (see an earlier post about my take on traditional societies) and my mind was opened, again! The talk was by Rick and Elis Simpson on the subject of wading birds (or shorebirds depending on where you live!).

Now, I’ve attended a few talks in this winter season already, one was about Derbyshire wildlife, another was about Oystercatchers, but I missed one on my specialist subject of upland Pennine wildlife (D’oh!). None of my attended talks, though very well researched and presented particularly inspired me to further action. Until now.

Ringed Plovers, Leasowe, Merseyside. Photo: Alex Cropper

Rick and Elis, to cut a long story short, decided to take a round the world trip to see as many wading birds as possible for charity. This was done initially to raise money for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) to help the fortunes of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. The focus soon changed however. They began realising that many species of wader they were seeing were in trouble and were in need of help. Again to cut the story down again they then saw that many organisations and individuals were putting in a lot of effort into reversing population declines by running low-cost conservation programs. For instance, to help protect some beach breeding waders in Australia leaflets were printed out along with some larger posters to create awareness within the beach using public. This cost less than £1000. Other projects include providing farmers with training and the means to work around breeding waders in their crop fields (for instance getting marker flags/poles to mark the nests out to avoid destroying them), and purchasing mist nets to assist local research projects, both projects that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. An idea for a charity was born – Wader Quest. A charity that helps fund small and cheap to run shorebird projects, and raises funds for wader conservation. A wonderful idea, many conservation charities spent tens of thousands of pounds/dollars on gargantuan and intensive research projects and nature reserve running costs; which is fantastic but doesn’t leave much room for the little guy. I joined the charity as a sponsor almost immediately.

A mixed wader flock at Leasowe, Merseyside (Look hard, they’re there believe me!). Photo: Alex Cropper

Now, I have a confession, my knowledge of waders is pretty poor and I prefer birds of prey and seabirds, but don’t tell anyone! But I love the idea of funding grass-roots projects – I firmly believe that if the grass roots are sorted out than the people and organisations further up the ladder will have a lot easier job ahead of them (like in the rest of life). I’d definitely urge everyone to think about joining Wader Quest as a sponsor, they’re fantastic! (And no, I don’t work for them I’m just completely inspired by them!). Now, I’m going to stop writing at start swatting up on wading birds…..

Here’s their website: http://www.waderquest.org/

Depressed into Nature

I was completely shocked yesterday (5th February) about an interview with the former footballer Clarke Carlisle. I won’t go into too much detail about the interview as I think it’s largely irrelevant to what I write about here. Basically in the interview he admitted he had attempted suicide and suffered severely from depression. What shocked me however was the reaction from a ‘celebrity’ who accused Carlisle of being selfish and needing to ‘buck up’ and not be so attention seeking. This has prompted me to write again.

Here’s the thing. I suffer from depression. There I said it. I’ll say it again. I suffer from depression. Most people who know me know this fact but it may come to a shock to others. I’m pretty open about it.

I’m at a position where I can write about it clearly thanks to months of therapy and treatment. But what has seriously helped me to tame the Ole’ Black Dog has been to embrace the natural world.

I’ll give you the start of the story (OK the start of the recent story). At the back end of 2009 I had a serious breakdown caused by an incident at work, I saw my doctor about this and he got me to see a therapist. In the following few weeks the therapist suggested things I could do to turn my life around, things like restarting a hobby or interest which you previously enjoyed. Which led me to rediscovering bird watching (I was a keen birdwatcher between the ages of 6ish and 10ish). So I found myself at the RSPB’s Marshside and Hesketh Out Marsh reserves near Southport. Luckily it was late September so the air was full of Pink-footed Geese, thousands of them! It was such a fantastic and awe-inspiring spectacle that I was immediately hooked and wanted to explore more. I rejoined the RSPB, visited more reserves, and eventually asked about volunteering.

I made an incredibly bold move in January 2010 when I spent two weeks residential volunteering at the RSPB’s Lake Vyrnwy reserve in Mid-Wales. I took two weeks unpaid leave from work to do something I never dreamt I’d ever do, working outdoors in a picturesque nature reserve – a bit different from bar work! Looking back the experience wasn’t that great in all honesty, the coldest winter in my own living memory meant there wasn’t a lot that could be done work-wise, and my depression was still quite prominent so it reared it’s ugly head at times too. However I had a wonderful conversation with one of the long term residential volunteers who told me I should think about wildlife conservation as a career as it would help my depression (and give me confidence) by being outdoors a lot of the time. So thanks Cleo wherever you are!

I filled in a feedback form after Vyrnwy which included the question (paraphrased) ‘Would you be interested in volunteering for a RSPB reserve in your local area?’ Which I replied yes. At the time there was no local reserve to me but lo and behold I received a letter in the post in April of 2010 asking if I wanted to volunteer at the newly opened Dove Stone reserve 24 miles away from my house. I said yes and the rest is history to quote a cliché.

So all this resulted from a moment of low low depression. I made the first step to dig myself out of a hole which resulted in me eventually securing a career in wildlife conservation. I’ve not attention seeked, I’ve not ‘bucked up’ and I’ve certainly not been selfish. One of the lowest moments of my life has led me to the highest; something I know others, such as Clarke Carlisle, can aspire too. Admitting you have depression and then seeking help can quite literally turn your life round for the positive. I still get low (and occasionally really low) moments but I now have the tools to come out the other side.

Anywho, that was a rather serious and confessional rambling blog post. I’ll try be a bit more light-hearted next time, or at least less personal!

Natural History Societies on the Red-List?

Natural History Societies on the Red-List?

I have been a member of the Cheshire and Wirral Ornithological Society since 2010. I recently went to an indoor meeting of theirs for the first time. The format was an ornithological talk with a break for tea or coffee and a chance for a chinwag in between. I’ve been encouraged to get more involved in the society and am in the process of helping them modernise and simplify the recording side of the society. At the meeting there was a giveaway of old Cheshire county Bird Reports and newsletters. I picked a Bird Report up from 1983 (the year of my birth) and a society newsletter from July 1990 (the time in my life when I was first into birds).

I’ve been reading the Bird Report in particular with great interest, for one thing it’s a great historic document now. The thing that grabbed my attention however was a simple list of local associated natural history and ornithological societies. There are 23 listed in 1983. It left me wondering, how many of them are still with us in 2014? Here are a list of the societies listed..

Altrincham & District Natural History Society

Chadkirk & District Natural History Society

Chester & District Ornithological Society

Hale Ornithologists

Heald Green Naturalists

Hilbre Island Ringing Group

High Peak RSPB Group

Knutsford Ornithological Society

Liverpool Ornithological Society

Lymm Ornithological Society

Cheshire Wildlife Trust Macclesfield branch (listed as Cheshire Conservation Trust)

Macclesfield RSPB Group

Manchester Ornithological Society

Merseyside Naturalists Association

Merseyside RSPB Group

Merseyside Ringing Group

Mid-Cheshire Ornithological Society

Nantwich Natural History Society

South East Cheshire Ornithological Society

Stockport RSPB Group

Wilmslow Guild Ornithological Society

Wirral Bird Club

Wirral RSPB Group

So after a quick session of googling all the societies listed it seems more are still around then I thought with 15 still going out of 23. I was expecting the majority of them to be gone in all honesty.

However it seems to me a lot of societies are stuck in the past, for instance it struck me as odd in 2014 that at least 3 of the 15 active societies don’t have a website to promote themselves. How are they expected to attract new membership in this day and age? This brings me to my next point on societies, which is the average age of membership. I have been to a couple of meetings in the last few months, one with the RSPB group in Macclesfield and the aforementioned CAWOS meeting. It struck me quite obviously that I was the youngest at either meeting by some considerable distance, I was pretty certain at the RSPB meeting I was the only person present not drawing a state pension.

Two local RSPB groups meet in Senior Citizens halls, whilst Macclesfield recently moved from the Macclesfield Senior Citizens Hall. What hope of attracting new younger (even slightly younger) members if you meet at a Senior Citizens Hall? If the trend I’ve noticed in the east of Cheshire for a mature membership is replicated in the rest of the county and indeed the rest of the country then most of the aforementioned societies will be no more within 20 years or so.

So how do these clubs and societies attract new membership? Social Media could be one answer. Only one of the 15 active societies currently has a Facebook page, the Macclesfield branch of the RSPB Explorers. Yet birding and natural history has a strong presence on Facebook, but not from traditional societies. For instance there is an active group on Facebook called Cheshire and Wirral Birders who are an active group that discusses local birds and share photos of birds that they have seen, the information is up to date; there is no need to wait for a quarterly newsletter to find out which birds you’ve missed! The group isn’t (as far as I can tell) associated with any of the traditional societies yet there is nothing in this group that a society can’t do if it were to set up its own Facebook group. A society’s Facebook group can share photos, information and can also promote indoor meetings more effectively.

I think there is definitely a place for the traditional Ornithological or Natural History Society, they are great places to meet like minded individuals and the talks given to society meeting are of the highest quality, however they need to move with the times or else they are in danger of becoming an endangered species.

 

Source: Hunter, J.S.A (ed.) (1985) Cheshire Bird Report 1983 Cheshire Ornithological Association, Cheshire