Sam Thompson

Practical Forestry for the Agent and Surveyor, by Cyril Hart, Very Good Book 9780900361579 | eBay

Never thought of ebay!

Thanks mate

Does anyone have a copy they want to sell on?

Just wondering before I splash out £45 on it

Sam

Bit of an issue with mine today...

Cruising up the M6 at about 55 and I flashed someone overtaking me with the lights and suddenly the revs died completely. Engine still running, but foot hard to the floor and nothing at all. I dropped into 4th and it was fine. No warning lights, no temp increase. Happened again on the way home when indicating. Solved it the same way and it was fine afterwards.

Engine is a 2.5TD (1988).

Any ideas before I talk to the hexperts?

Sam

to coin a phrase There are "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

 

having done my degree and MSc thesis on game management and effects on species of conservation interest, we could all be give the same raw data about buzzards, but by using different interpretation and statistics we could all come up with an answer that suits us, to be fair the money in DEFRA's tender for this means its going to be a really small scale trail as you simply can do the ground work required for a detailed study on that budget IMHO, unless you use it fund a couple of PhD's with it then you may get some impartial but decent data.

 

Im really supprised that they have done this for buzzards before DEFRA have done research on sparrowhawks which has been regarded as in issue for the last 15+years, although most of this sparrowhark research has already been done by the likes of GWCT. I think this comes on the back of some serious lobbying by the NGO bigwigs but certainly on the ground in eastern England I used to keeper on buzzards didnt even surface on the radar as being an issue.

 

Hopefully sensible decisions are made, as having worked for various bodies including the local joint raptor study group the last thing the conservation sector in the country needs is more material to cause arguments, what is really required is compromise on all sides, I have worked with very co-operative keepers on the moors, and some that are very wary, likewise I have also had dealings with Raptor groups that wont actually work with people in the conservation sector. Until a compromise be reached the stalemate will continue.

 

FTR I shoot have done all my life and I have yet to see a well managed proper shoot with a decent keeper that has an issue with raptors. the first thing i look for on the farm land is what state the environment is in, as if its being managed well for nature then game normally does ok, so good hedges are a must, if you butcher hedges every year then your going to have raptor predation as you removing a significant amout of cover and movement corridors for the wildlife. Even little things like consideration of where to site release pens, if you make a big opening in the woodland and then sit a pen full of 400ready meals in it with an abundance of perching points around it your going to have issues.

 

I have found a lot of so called keepers now dont want to put the leg work in, dont even get me started on red-legs on grouse moors

 

 

I had convinced myself i wasnt going to get drawn into this as well

Charlie,

Very good post .

The more I talk to people within shooting I wonder how we are still going some times. There is a real attitude of "we must defend it all" when it comes to even the tiniest question being raised about anything, be it ethics, humanity or whatever. [That isn't in response to Charlie's post, just a thought]

At some point I can see the industry shooting itself in the foot over something or other and it being unrecoverable.

Hopefully DEFRA will come back with a better thought out proposal in the future, and in the mean time and those that need to should push hard for licences to be issued where there is large scale predation occurring.

But why is DEFRA - ie you, me and everybody - paying for research specifically into threats to pheasants? I'm a shooting man myself, but I can see why having taxpayers' money spent this way, in austerity Britain, isn't great PR for the country way of life. Better, surely, for a shooting organisation (or individual?) to fund it then trumpet any 'collateral benefits' in terms of protection of lapwings, etc.?

Benefits to hill farming would be large I think. But as stated by HCR, shooting puts a lots of money into rural areas, in some areas more than anything else. As the department of rural affairs I think they should be looking into ways to increase the productivity of rural areas.

I guess for similar reasons that the tourist board would pay to research potential threats to tourism or indeed DEFRA would pay to look into farming issues.

 

The sporting shoot is an industry that creates jobs, manages land (often in ways better for biodiversity than farming) and brings in foreign currency.

 

Personally, I am inclined against culling buzzards, particularly having led a re-establishment programme for them in the late 90s. However, this was in an area with a general raptor paucity so I can speak with little experience of areas with excesses of the things.

It's research not into culling but control. My personal opinion of non lethal control is pretty plain to see I think, however DEFRA are looking into this before any lethal methods are discussed.

http://www.heinnie.com/uploads/images_products_large/8333.jpg

Just ordered

There seems to be a lot of whining on Arbtalk about money.

 

We are probably all worth twice what we earn, but that's the way it is.

 

A big company on here recently offered about £7.5/hr to a newbie and were slagged off. Look at the amount of posts from lads offering to work for nothing!

 

As long as you are offering minimum wage, the rest is down to choice.

 

I wish I was 18 again giving my Mam £20 a week all found, but just because you're in your 40's with 3 kids doesn't make you worth any more to the bloke who has to come up with your wage every week.

Mark is obviously been shot in the face, that isn't him, it is right and sensible.

I cannot believe that you think £7.50 is a bad wage for a proper job, not subby/cash in hand/occasional day here and there stuff!

Some people need a boot in the arse.

Whilst I think I know what you mean, but I would have thought the scale must be insignificant when put against productive land.

I also think that most land managed for sporting purposes comes second to it's agricultural value, certainly this is my experience away from the fells and highlands.

However, I would be interested to understand your alternatives to the present system.

Me too!

I've seen buzzards evolve into very capable hunters over the last 20 years of my gamekeeping career, anyone who thinks that buzzards are lazy and would rather eat carrion than take a healthy pheasant poult is welcome to come to my shoot and I'll put a dead rabbit in a pheasant pen full of poults and you see what he takes!! I think by managing the buzzards it will create an opening for the thousands of kites that have been released into our countryside!!!! I have seen 27 red kites sat on post in between partridge release sites waiting for a buzzard to kill when it does the kites mob him until he lets it go, the kite takes it off and eats it the buzzard kills again and the same happens until the buzzard gets fed up I counted 17 partridges killed by the same buzzard in one morning before he got one for himself and £40 a bird you can understand why most shoots don't want buzzards or kites! Just my opinion and observations.

Ditto!

I don't oppose the control of vermin, protection of crops, or well thought through attempts to remedy an imbalance created through previous poor practice, e.g. eradication of introduced species which prove damaging to the ecosystem. I'm quite happy with the current grey squirrel cull in Northumbria, have shot a lot of pigeons and starlings (the latter to protect a cherry crop) and whilst I no longer shoot, I let someone come and shoot on my land.

It is however important to understand the effects of any such 'intervention' through small scale trials with careful monitoring, rather than leaping in and creating a different problem.

I quite agree mate, I would not put anything on the general licence without research, it is not prudent.

The ecosystem would maintain a balance if it was left alone, just as it did for millenia before we started to change it for our own ends. If the capercaillie, or grouse, or whatever else, were left to get on with it then a natural balance between predators and the predated would ensue in fairly short order the overall populations being determined by the food available at each level of the food chain. If the land was not managed it would revert, the area of natural moor would be much smaller so the populations would reduce, but become stable.

I'm afraid that without commercial shooting there would be no black grouse at all, at least not in the Pennines. The income generated by grouse moors is what pays for the predator control that allows black game to thrive. I was told the other day that in the past two years in the Pennines the population has gone from an estimated 400 to 1,000 Cappers'. The lowest number of any estate is on the RSPB's "flagship" reserve at Geltsdale, they do not conduct any predator control. Food for thought

However, man has a desire to intervene. Your comment 'if we ever want good numbers of black game' is, I imagine, an implicit statement of 'if people want to go and shoot them for sport'.

Pretty much, as this indicates there is a surplus and that is good.

Firstly because I think it's a morally questionable branch of the entertainment industry. If you try to work out the reasons why people want to kill things when it's not for food, protection of crops of defence of themselves or their family (and I've never heard of 'when grouse attack') then I can only think it comes down to the exercising of power, which is not in my opinion a good justification. I accept that it creates employment, but so did bear baiting and cock fighting, and numerous other things which are no longer accepted. Alternative use of the land may also create employment.

Economical benefits are far less than the conservation values. Gamekeepers manage more than 1.3million hectares of land in this country helping among others brown hare, songbirds and wading birds by controlling predators like fox and mink. Feeding over winter helps grey partridge, skylarks and yellowhammers, and the rest. Birds of prey also do well on managed land, contrary to what you will hear from certain bodies! Two thirds of shoots in the are smaller than 1000ha, and a quarter being smaller than 250ha, so not really big fat man who only care about killing many things.

As an aside, I recall that as a child, pheasants outside of autumn were a very rare sight. With warmer winters they seem to be naturalising. It would be an interesting piece of research to see whether they are out-competing native species for food and habitat and in fact there need to be some control measures.

That isn't the case from what I have seen, the stories I have heard from old keepers imply that the wild pheasant population is decreasing. When I look at some old game books (1890-1917, the bloke got killed at the Somme) from an area I used to frequent in Cheshire. You can tell the habitat that has been lost due to agricultural changes - silage pits where copse's use to stand and the chap shot hares. Where he was shooting 40 different species in the same area you would be lucky to find 15 now

Finally, I have heard it said that one of the favourite foods of the buzzard is the grass snake. It will be interesting to see if this is concluded in the study.

 

Alec

Seen a few adders skinned out by a Buzzard. Two so far this year and only one alive

Alec, you put across some good points, and I agree with a lot of what your saying, you probably know a lot of the facts and stuff above, but a few people who look at this thread won't - I think it's important for people to understand what is going on on "my" side of the fence!

Atb

Sam

Nuts and bolt with some big washers. glue worries then

:lol:

No idea how tempted I was to staple it!I just CBA with doing it all again, it took the thick end of a day... but it was a proper job for once

Trying to design a drawer system at the moment too, its all go in landrover land!

To the people who object to "tampering" with nest/egg pricking - do you oppose the same techniques used on other birds - such as the Canada Goose?

Kennedy is 100% right, often by trying do the right thing people cock it up, look at the falcons that were at Dark Peak a few years ago.

But have -you- already decided on the 'right' outcome?

 

If the answer isn't the one you want to see, will you accept that good research has proved your preconceptions wrong, or will you reject the research because it doesn't suit your opinions and claim that the itself research is flawed. If you claim it's flawed, will you do so having proved this in an evidence-based fashion, or just assume it must be because it doesn't suit you?

 

Alec

Not really, I have my ideas from working closely with wildlife since I was about 6, but we shall see and I'm open to what they come up with. However I have read "research" done before in Carrion Crow damage and it just tally up with what I and everyone else has seen on the ground.

No-one who has spent any time working on grouse moors, especially one's with a cappercallie population can deny that buzzards and raptors generally have a large affect on numbers.

If we ever want good numbers of black game we need to stop listening the the FC and stop planting tree's, increase all levels of predator control and designate exclusion zones for the public.

The high temps over the past two days have made the glue holding my rooflining up to melt and leave my head holding it up!!!!

I used that carpet glue before, spray stuff, and it was a cracking job.

Unsure what to use now. Maybe Copydex or something.

The thing about good research is that it finds the facts. This is very inconvenient if you've already decided what answer you want to find and it doesn't coincide with the facts. At this point, people tend to blame the research, the researchers, the funding body etc. rather than accepting the evidence.

 

Alec

I know, but respectable people like the RSPB and DEFRA would never do that surely?!

Its madness to cull/capture/destroy nests of buzzards!

No it isn't. Pricking eggs is the way forward

Yes, sorry but modern farming has decimated the Lapwing population. I am old enough to remember fields with hundreds of them in but now rarely see them.

 

Buzzards have only really increased in my area over the last 5-8 years, the Lapwings have been missing long before then.

 

Think most of the Kites and Buzzards round my way prefer road kill - Buzards are particularly lazy birds!

Nature is a funny thing, if the population of buzzards say grew 100 times overnight, they would eat all the available food and then starve to the point that the population drops back to a level that the available food would allow them to live.

 

You generally find that when man gets inolved with trying to control nature, it all gets messed up. Look what happened when the Chinese killed all the birds because they were eating their crops, the level of insects grew to a point that it decimated their crops.

 

Japanese Knotweed was an introduction to the country by the Victorians and look what happened there:thumbdown:

The problem is now there is too many buzzards, once they became protected no-one shot them () and many people started to feed them, they were re-introduced by people in large numbers. Too many of anything is not a good thing. Nothing is natural in the UK apart from the foreshore, everything is managed, we cannot decide to only manage and control the ugly things, like rats.

 

Oh and Sam, it's predation not preditation (friendly smiley here but on phone, sorry)

Oops, sorry, loooong day of walking dykes!

It is official that DEFRA are investing £375,000 into researching the damages and benefits of buzzards in the British countryside. Personally I think this is brilliant news for Lapwings, Sandpipers, Grey Partridges and Skylarks among the many other species that are in decline because of over preditation. As long as DEFRA report what is actually happening - rather than what they dream up from their desks, they may just gain some respect! Fingers Crossed.

What do you think?

Official line below;

Defra is absolutely not proposing to cull buzzards or any other raptors.

 

We work on the basis of sound evidence. This is why we want to find out the true extent of buzzards preying on young pheasants and how best to discourage birds that may cause damage to legitimate businesses. This would be only in areas where there is a clear problem, using non-lethal methods including increasing protective cover for young pheasants with vegetation, diversionary feeding of buzzards, moving the birds elsewhere or destroying empty nests. The results of this scientific research will help guide our policy on this issue in the future.

 

As the RSPB have said, the buzzard population has recovered wonderfully over the last few years, and we want to see this continue.

"Fred in a shed, you end up dead" as someone once told me, not to say there isn't good non-professional mechanics and engineers, but that doesn't look like one to me. They make the chassis strong for a reason!

It's too important to bodge IMO.

Quick helmet mod and ta-da!

Fantastic!

Hang in there big fella, they didn't like Darwin at the start either!

What a load of codswallop!!!!!!!!!

Just a bit! it was probably made by a politics student from the LSE or something:001_rolleyes:

Does anyone know the best place to buy tractor enamel? Preferably something online!

Cheers

Is this the same model of saw you sent back. TBH you cant expect more than a year out of a saw for aldi money.

Ditto, you generally get what you pay for!

Does it have a chain brake?

Maverick.

Your a smelly pirate hooker. Go back to you home on whore island.

60% of the time. All the time.