Greys Vs Reds - Come on you Martens!

[drinksloe]

Also in most parts corvids (crows, magpies), sparrowhawks, goshawks, and perrie's are all doing really well +badgers are all increasing population and range.

In fact the only BoP not doing well is the once common Kestral as being bullied by buzzards, hardly see a kestral now in my area

 

I can think of a few places where its not unusual to see 10+ buzzards playing in thermals.

Rabbits are a fairly staple diet for buzzards, so even if each buzzard eats 1 rabbit a day and u have 10 buzzards in an area they were rare 10-15 years ago, thats 3500+ rabbits a year, in a good year with high populations probably not a problem but when numbers at a low point due to disease its too much to allow them to build and can keep them low or actually lead to local extinctions.

[Mick Dempsey]

So what if rabbit populations are kept low? Is that a bad thing? Not that I believe you about local extinctions.

Buzzards can eat worms, frogs and all sorts of small mammals.

You say goshawks and peregrines are increasing, surely that's a good thing? A sign of a healthy system.

Earlier in the thread you wrote disparagingly about "bunny huggers" you beginning to sound an awful lot like one.

[drinksloe]

But thats the problem almost every species thriving is a predator and usually an oportunist predator at that, so has no links if a prey species becomes less common. With more stable predator/prey reltionships predators will rise fall 1/2 years after the prey species numbers rise and fall. In this country the predator will munch on the easiest prey and just switch to the next easiest

 

Look at the BTO census syrveys almost every prey species is in decline some and very sevre decline and the vast majority of predators are increasing rapidly.

That is not a healthy place to be with only predators thriving, at some point everything will crash as no prey left.

Plenty of scientifi studies out there that prove in a lot of areas things are being ate quickier than they can breed.

 

 

My point about the rabbits is that if something has succesful as rabbits can be kept in check by predators other things have no chance.

I can think of quite a few farms where i used to shoot 100 rabbits in a night 10ish years ago and not even dent the population, now hardly a rabbit, and plenty of other places that have never had many rabbits quite unusaul to see 1 now, can't think the last time i seen a rabbit on my shoot and not shot one for 5+ years

 

Sort of got veered of topic but no matter how good the PM is at kiling greys the last thing u want to be doing is enouraging another predator in ecosystems already satrated by predators.

I'm sure the idea will work initally for 5,10 or 20 years but at some point as PM numbers rise and grey numbers fall it will be easier for the PM to eat other things and thats when u will have a massive problem as protected (once protected always protected in this country no matter how much damage they cause) so u just have to sit back and watch our wildlife get eaten.

[Mick Dempsey]

Let me give you an example.

I'm a keen, albeit amateur, naturalist, since moving to France from south east England I have personally seen, pine martens, a polecat, stoats, weasels, foxes, badgers and a genet, (Run over sadly) and raptor wise, Sparrow Hawks, hen harriers, buzzards, Red Kites, short toed Eagles and a goshawk (I think!)

Now all these prey species could not survive for more than one generation unless there was sufficient prey.

My point is predators are indicative of a healthy ecosystem not a broken one.

I can however see that in a nature reserve with vulnerable species I can understand that certain "destructive" species like foxes and some mustelids must be kept out or trapped.

[openspaceman]

Let me give you an example.

I'm a keen, albeit amateur, naturalist, since moving to France from south east England I have personally seen, pine martens, a polecat, stoats, weasels, foxes, badgers and a genet, (Run over sadly) and raptor wise, Sparrow Hawks, hen harriers, buzzards, Red Kites, short toed Eagles and a goshawk (I think!)

Now all these prey species could not survive for more than one generation unless there was sufficient prey.

 

That's a view I share. In 1985 it wasn't unusual to have a weasel run in and out of the logpiles as we ate lunch but I haven't see one since about that period.

 

I think the problems lie nearer the bottom of the food chain, whether that may be less over wintered stubble or less dairy cattle to produce flies for the swallows or less mice and sparrows from better hygiene in crop stores I don't know.

[drinksloe]

That's a view I share. In 1985 it wasn't unusual to have a weasel run in and out of the logpiles as we ate lunch but I haven't see one since about that period.

 

I think the problems lie nearer the bottom of the food chain, whether that may be less over wintered stubble or less dairy cattle to produce flies for the swallows or less mice and sparrows from better hygiene in crop stores I don't know.

 

 

I have the complete oppisate view, predators by their definations should be rare, ur basic ecological principles of boimsss or population pyramids also state u have to have far fewer predators than prey.

 

OSM wot ur saying does no entirely make sense, if u think there is a problem further down the food chain why is there more predators than ever before in recorded history??

And that is my argument/point predators and prey are not really linked in this totally man made environment we all live in

There is no doubt that waders, song, LBJ (little brown jobs) are generally in massive decline some at over 80-90% in last 30 years.

If predators were totally relying on them they shouldnot be in such high numbers.

 

If u look into Langholm moor, big study ongoing the now (looking like going to be a total failure after £10mil) the 1st study up there Hen harriers bred so well ate almost every living thing on the moor and did eat themselves to starvation, numbers dropped from 28ish pair to 2, before the study was always about 4 pair breeding successfully and 5 keepers had FT jobs and a bit ofseasonal work for locals, after HH explosion no jobs up there.

The new study is going the exact same way the way its looking at minute althou this time HH numbers never go so high due the the high number of buzzards that were absent in 1st study.

 

Have a look on the Song bird Survival website, they're a proper bird charity doing a lot of good work who actually care more about birds than just chasing funds.

 

Another really good site is the GWCT, they have done numerous predator studies over the years.

2 relevent to this are the work they have done at Otterburn, basically a big bit of hill ground, divided it into 4 big chunks and studied wader breeding and predator control.

They found on the 'control' areas where things were left to get on the birds were producing less chicks than they needed to survive every year.

As soon as u inroduced predator control the breeding success of waders shot up by about 3X the chicks fledging.

 

The other real intresting long term study is ot there doig at Allerton, basiclly they were inherited an small estate/farm for research/study.

They at 1 point stopped feeding and predator control and bird number plummetted on the farm, started feeding and numbers rose a bit but when started predator control again numbers really shot up.

 

Nothing there doing is really rocket science, basically ur 3 legged stool, provide habitat feed and predator conrol, if ur only doing habitat and feed ur probably doing more harm than good attracting a higher density of birds into an area making it even easier for predators.

In an ideal natural ecosystem predator numbers should inicate a good healthy ecosystem, but in the broken man made systems that does not seem to b the case, when numbers of birds are declining by 80-90% something is far wrong (possibly predation is not the 'main' problem) but it can be the final nail in coffin. Even putting bells on cats collars would help massively.

 

Obviously these are only my opinions, but if u look on some of thoose sites research does tend to be backed up by wot i see after living the last 40 years in same village and spreaking to old fsarmers/shepherds/keepers who have also lived/worked on the same farms for a long time.

The view u are given from countryfiile/autumn watch etc is a very skewed highly edited view and not really true, they believe everything will just get on if u leave it to it, which just does not happen in practice

Edited January 17, 2016 by drinksloe

[openspaceman]

I have the complete oppisate view, predators by their definations should be rare, ur basic ecological principles of boimsss or population pyramids also state u have to have far fewer predators than prey.

 

I don't disagree, the point I was making was that I'm seeing less of specific predator species, like stoats and weasels.

 

I’m seeing more "scavengers" some like red kites, because they are artificially supported.. Locally there are less rabbits than in the past. Also Crows Magpies and foxes seem to benefit from roadkill. At the same time locally the road network has effectively driven habitat sizes down below that can support a meta population, increased traffic makes a roads a barrier to herps where in the past I saw lizards and grass snakes scuttle across.

 

OSM wot ur saying does no entirely make sense, if u think there is a problem further down the food chain why is there more predators than ever before in recorded history??

 

Give me a cite of which predators you mean.

 

And that is my argument/point predators and prey are not really linked in this totally man made environment we all live in

There is no doubt that waders, song, LBJ (little brown jobs) are generally in massive decline some at over 80-90% in last 30 years.

If predators were totally relying on them they shouldnot be in such high numbers.

 

But we plainly agree that there is a decline further down the food chain so what we differ on is what these predators with increased numbers are and how their predation is reducing the prey species population. I hold that the decline is to do with environmental factors other than predation.

 

I have no knowledge of the studies with hen harriers you mention but I have seen the return of kestrels who in turn have been displaced by buzzards.

[peatff]

We see a lot of Buzzards round here now whereas they were seldom seen about 5 years ago. There are also less Kestrels but more Sparrowhawks round here now, we sometimes get one in the back garden catching the blackbirds by surprise.

[drinksloe]

I don't think we're that far apart OSM, must admit i tend to think the lack of habitat/environmental change excuse is the easy 1 all the birders like to pull out the hat when they don't know wot to blame, or face the truth u have to manage predators.

They can't point the finger at old grammies cats as they donate to them and scared to upset them

Bit like 'global warming' chestnut

 

Obviously it could be site specific, but in my local area the local farming has not really changed that much, almost all the old hedgrows are still where they were when i was a boy and infaact more have been planted.

 

When i was a boy we used to collect eggs (granted won't have helped matters) now hardly ever see a wader in this area, yet go 20miles up the road to almost identical farmland and the place is literally teaming with waders and all fledging chicks succesfully.

The only difference is got a decent keeper up there (as gwct study at otterburn proved scientifically, as only thing they changed was predator numbers)

Even some rspb resrve they manged to significantly increase wader numbers by predator control but keep it all quiet so not to upset members, now spending fortunes fencing nesting areas, money would be far better killing the things there fencing out so a far greater area will benefit from safer nesting.

 

That nature resere is a prime example, always around the 50ish resident mallard, yet there has not been a succesfull brood there for years, that nature reserve is not self sustaining and needs duck from elswhere to come in to keep it stable. Had a pair of little glebe's for years 1 year had 4 nests never got a chick off, 1 was killed by a stoat last year so other is just on its own.

This year they are finally allowing me to do limited crow control at nesting time, prob killing 2-3 pairs of carrion crows is all it will take to give nesting birds a chance

Yet has plentiful Reds squirrels as have no predators so feed/habitat works well

 

I'm sure if u google the Langholm moor it wil come up, got a fancy website for it the now and it will probably give u the history of it, quite intresting wot they're doing but the sheer number of buzzards up there has ruined it.

 

 

Do u think the stoats are no longer there? I'd be surprised if there not, it's just ur not seeing them. Most owl species are stable rising so must be not to bad for mice/vole numbers