newsletter RSPB Wokingham and Bracknell Local Group Autumn

August 2019

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity: England and Wales No: 207076, Scotland No: SC037654

The RSPB is the country’s largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home.

P a t r i c k C r o w l e y ’ s C h a i r m a n s v i e w – L o o k i n g f o r w a r d t o o u r 4 0 t h Ye a r

Group newsNewsletterThe printed newsletter will no longer be posted to your home; copies can now be collected from any of our evening social events.

Publicity leafletThe group has designed and printed a publicity leaflet in order to attract new members to the group.

This coming year will be our 40th year since the group was formed in 1979, a wonderful achievement. To celebrate, we are planning an extra evening meeting on the 9th July 2020, when we will have a reception with drinks, snacks, and a cake, followed by a talk from Peter Holden. Peter worked for the RSPB for 40 years and was responsible for the RSPB Young Ornithologists Club (now the Wildlife Explorers), and starting and developing the Big Garden Birdwatch. He is an inspirational speaker, who will help make our celebration one to truely remember. Please put this date in your new calendar for next year.We have a varied mix of speakers and topics at our Evening Meetings, and I hope you will find the programme for 2019-2020 is no exception. Indeed, this year we have six speakers who are new to the group. We start with a talk on raptors, always a challenge to identify, and possibly the first talk we have had on this topic. We then have talks on birding in India, and Finland and Norway, followed by our Christmas social. To start 2020, we have two local talks, about Otmoor Nature Reserve, and the other about the Thames Basin Heathlands, which are very important examples of lowland heath. We then switch back to birding abroad, first in Africa, and then the Camargue in France, which was a subject covered in the very first indoor talk for the group in 1979. Finally, in May 2020 our very own Ian Paine will talk about his experiences birdwatching in Norfolk over 30 years, and at our AGM group member Elaine Charlson will give us talk on UK bats. We are putting up the admission fees to our indoor meetings from £2.50 to £3 for members, and from £3 to £4 for non-members. We do need to do this to maintain the high standard of speakers for our talks, as costs are increasing yearly.

40th Anniversary year programme of events Photographic competition 2019

Last December group member’s submitted photographs for our annual UK Nature Photographic Competition 2018. Stunning images of birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife, from these entries we have selected and

produced a 40th Anniversary calendar. We’ll then be getting this calendar printed so that we have it ready for sale at our first indoor meeting in September, then at every indoor event up to Christmas (while stocks last).This year the photographic competition will again be the highlight of our Christmas Social, the rules are exactly the same, each member can have up to three images of UK wildlife that has been taken in the current year. An A4 printed copy of your images is to be submitted at the Christmas Social evening. Organising the event again will be Alan Moore, please notify Alan of your intention to enter the competition, so that he has enough time for all the necessary administration issues for the smooth running of the competition. All entrants should provide on a separate piece of paper their name, subject, contact details and a brief description of where and when their images were taken, (do not attach or write on the back of your image). One

change to last year is we are asking you to forward a digital jpg of your images to Alan, each file should be renamed as follows SUBJECT_SURNAME.jpg.I will then again produce another calendar for 2021. 2020 copies can also be obtained by emailing Alan Moore at scillybirdblue.yahoo.co.uk

For our Field Trips and Midweek Walks, we are visiting a wide range of tried and tested nature reserves and birdwatching venues, including four RSPB and two WWT reserves. We will be going to some of our special local heathlands such as Greenham Common, Thursley Common, Wishmoor Bottom and Farnham Heath, where we should see the heathland specialities such as Dartford warbler, woodlark, tree pipit, stonechat and nightjar. We will visit coastal and estuarine venues such as Titchfield Haven, Keyhaven, Pagham Harbour, Slimbridge and Lepe, looking for species of waders, ducks and geese, as well as spring and autumn migrants. Gravel pits and wetlands such as Moor Green Lakes, Pulborough Brooks and the WWT London Wetland Centre will also be in our programme. Again, we have two Nightjar Walks in June, and our spring Dawn Chorus Walk in early May, and of course our monthly A Date with Nature Walks on the first Saturday of every month at Dinton Pastures Country Park. We are running two trips away, with a long weekend in Norfolk in mid-November 2019, and a midweek trip to the Somerset Levels in mid-May 2020. These are popular sites to visit, and hotels that are able to take a large group are hard to find. We have booked rooms in two hotels and all accommodation is now taken, but if you want to come on these trips, do get in touch, and join us, there’s still time.We plan to run our biannual Introduction to Birdwatching course in spring of 2020, revamped from previous years, with a section on migration, to take account of the rapid increase in knowledge of where migrant birds go, from the use of geolocators and GPS tags. The course is designed for people starting out birdwatching, but anyone can come along. Dates, times and course details will be published on our website.That’s enough from me. I look forward to seeing you all at an evening talk or field trip in September.

Fire on Hazeley HeathA heathland fire is a devastating natural disaster that can have dire consequences for heathland wildlife. Many animals, birds and insects are unable to escape from fire and will be burnt. Birds can fly away but the nests and eggs that are left behind are destroyed. Uncontrolled fires happen for a variety of

reasons, including people carelessly dropping cigarettes, leaving rubbish in an area, losing control of barbeques and bonfires, and in a small number of cases deliberately starting fires.A fire at RSPB Hazeley Heath nature reserve in Hampshire on 23rd May has destroyed 12 hectares of heathland. Fire crews spent more than 14 hours tackling the blaze at the heath. The heath is a designated site of special scientific interest and home to several species of protected wildlife as woodlark, tree pipit, Dartford warbler and nightjar.

British base good for songbirdsGood news from Cyprus where the Illegal trapping of songbirds is at a 10 year low on a UK military base, the latest report suggests a continued decline in the number of birds being illegally killed on this British military base.The continued reduction is due in part to work by the RSPB, BirdLife Cyprus and the Sovereign Base Area Administration using covert surveillance methods to catch trappers in the act, leading to stronger court sentences. But the real heroes are the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) whose volunteers did the bulk of the work, removing illegal nets, challenge offenders and providing evidence for prosecutions.The songbirds are sold via the black market to restaurants in the Republic of Cyprus for diners to eat, with criminal gangs earning hundreds of thousands of Euros from this illegal activity. An estimated 121,000 songbirds, such as blackcaps and robins, have been illegally killed on a British military base in Cyprus last autumn, according to a new report by BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB. However, this number was down from 260,000 in 2017 and 880,000 in 2016.Since the work started in 2016, some 21 trappers have been caught on camera and prosecuted, with courts imposing three years suspended jail sentences and fines as high as 6000 Euros. More individuals caught in 2018 are due to appear in court later this year. The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) have also continued to provide crucial support in identifying trapping sites.

Birds of prey history and humans2,000 BC: Records indicate that humans in ancient China were using raptors to hunt. Records refer to falcons as royal gifts in the Heian dynasty in China, dating back to 2205 BC.

1700 BC: Pictorial records and wall hangings show falconers with birds on their wrists in Arabia and Persia.

300 BC: Vague references, including those by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, 384-322 BC, place the sport of falconry in Europe.

733-1800: Falconry is highly popular in Medieval Europe (500-1500) and remained so up until the time of the French Revolution in the late 18th century. During the reign of Edward III, 1327-77, theft of a trained raptor was punishable by death.

1500: In the New World, the Spanish Conquistadors find the Aztecs make use of trained hawks.

1600: Falconry reaches its highest level in England and is governed by strict rules – a king could fly a gyrfalcon; an earl would fly a peregrine; a yeoman could have a goshawk; the sparrowhawk was reserved for priests; and servants would have a kestrel. Poet and playwright William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, was an avid falconer.

1800: Vast societal changes – the French Revolution, the decline of the aristocracy and the growing popularity of firearms such as the flint-lock – cause the popularity of falconry to plummet.

1900: Falconry crosses the Atlantic to the United States of America. The sport slowly gains popularity.

1934-35: The first sizable North American falconry group, The Peregrine Club, is established at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1930s. The club died out during World War II.

1939-1945: During WWII years a UK bounty was in force to shoot peregrines in order to protect carrier pigeons messages from troop/aircraft units aboard.

1961: The North American Falconer’s Association forms. Today it boasts more than 2,000 members.

1962: Rachel Carson’s classic book, “Silent Spring,” energises the environmental movement by revealing the widespread devastation caused by chemicals. In the book she gave us the choice of two paths to take – we’ve taken the wrong one and are still blindly ignoring her writings.

1970: Peregrines are placed on the U.S. Endangered Species List. By this time, the birds were wiped out in the Eastern United States. There were only 39 known pairs in the Western U.S.

1972: DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is banned in the United States. It was banned in Canada in 1970. The potent pesticide accumulated in non-targeted animals as it moved up the food chain, causing ill effects including reproductive problems, especially among birds of prey. A true ornithological colossus of conservation establishes the Peregrine Fund, you may not have heard of Professor Tom Cade of Cornell University, as he never sought personnal publicity, but he was the USA equivalent of the UKs Roy Dennis.

1974: The first peregrines are raised in captivity (fewer than two dozen) released by The Peregrine Fund to begin rebuilding the population. The organisation used peregrines donated by falconers to begin the breeding programme. Since then, the organisation, now based in Idaho, has released some 4,000 birds.

August 20th 1999: President Clinton announces peregrines have been removed from the endangered species list in the USA – it can be done, if we try!

May 1999: The Scottish First Minister Donald Dewar said in his speech that the continuing raptor persecution is a national disgrace.

August 2019: In the UK we are still shooting and trapping all our birds of prey.

© Nick Bolter 2019

Sarah walked around the building twice while I watched from Sainsbury’s viewpoint, and this morning Black 69 was told to go and get breakfast by Mrs N about 7.15am. He came back six minutes later with a jackdaw, which he refused to share with her. No hungry juveniles came clamouring out to be fed at all. There are no juvenile peregrines at the base of the building dead or alive.Black 69 then changed window ledges and stashed the carcass into a corner and left it there, not letting Mrs Newbury have any!We will continue checking for another week, but we are still convinced sadly that no chicks have reached fledging. Between 5.30am and 7.30am this morning, the only calling we heard came from Mrs N perched on the highest girder. It was very quiet initially and we would easily have heard any other peregrine.Ed. We shouldn’t worry about what appears to be an initial failure, the original pair at Chichester Cathedral took several attempts to finally successfully breed, and in the end they raised over 40 juveniles.

RSPB brood meddling costs

The legal cost for Natural England of defending and related appeal of the case was £106.000. Natural England were awarded costs for successfully winning the RSPB challenge in the High Court. Costs were capped for £10,000 for the RSPB and £5000 for former employee Mark Avery both in accordance with the Aarhus Convention.The Convention sets a benchmark for ‘participatory rights’ in environmental matters – including access to information (‘the right to know’), public participation in decision-making (‘the right to get involved’) and access to justice (‘the right to challenge’). The UK ratified the Convention in 2005.

BT exchange peregrine updateSarah and I came back from Cumbria and Scotland a day early and spent over 8 hours observing the Newbury BT Exchange Peregrines, writes Ken White.

How do you survey nightjars?Using mapping software such as MapInfo, helps to visualise and analyse spatial data for very difficult species such as the nightjar. Last years project to survey nightjar territories across the New Forest was carried out during May, June and July, by enthusiastic volunteers listening for churring nightjars at sites across the New Forest. When the data was returned it was digitised so that all of the nightjar records, were used to create a map of all the points where nightjars had been heard churring. In order to estimate the number of territories from this data, a buffer zone of 350m was placed around each point. Points that are more than 350m apart can be considered as separate territories, but points that are less than 350m apart are probably the same individual churring in different places. Last years final estimates were of 435 breeding territories in the New Forest!ED. I think these figures are a bit misleading. The data assumes that each singing male is a pair, I don’t think you can come to that conclusion. For the past five years I have been heavily involved in development of a 400ha rewilding project on an old arable farm in Hampshire. Six large enclosures of plantation pine has been cleared into perfect nightjar habitat. We work closely with Natural England and the project has the highest level stewardship status.We are now two years into our nightjar project here on the farm. Last year we had one singer, but, he had no mate, but he just kept on singing in the faint hope throughout the summer. This year he did, so his churring was reduced almost to nothing. The other point is the New Forest is vastly more open, birds can spread out, churring males do not give you an accurate figure for breeding pairs, but if done annually do tell you whether the population is stable. The farm is appealing to new males, they may well be first year birds, the older females are by nature returning to their old breeding grounds, once we get the breeding association with our clearings our population year on year will rise. In a few years time we’ll need ear plugs. So how will we count them? Well, we'll use thermal imaging equipment, from 20ft up – as each clearing has its own elevated tree hide, perfect for locating these birds – the farm is the best place anywhere to see a nightjar close-up.

Database survey on the rewilding farmWe are using the same software to map species across the farms’ rewilding project; although we have a management plan by Hampshire & IoW Wildlife Trust we have found that it’s vital that we have better access to data. So what we have done is to break down the farm into areas giving each sector a reference, we then can then allocate the species we find to an area of the farm, dated and numbered.

In only three weeks since using this software we have imported over 4,500 species of birds, plants, and insects into the database. The farm has some rare and interesting species; our butterfly recorded count of 30 species is nearly half of the UKs total of 61. Our number counts are not in the tens but hundreds, even thousands for some species. Our hope is to reintroduce other species. We have nine bat species on the farm that is half of all the UKs species, our list of breeding birds stands at 65 different species, with eight breeding species of raptor. Yearly over 100 different bird species visit the farm.

National Trust climate divestment The National Trust has announced it will cease any investment in fossil fuel companies. The charity will introduce a series of new measures to ensure its investment strategy continues to support its aims as a conservation charity. Previously the Trust had required that no investment be made directly in companies, which derived more than 10 per cent of their turnover from the extraction of thermal coal or oil from oil sands. Fossil fuel investments comprise just four per cent of its current portfolio. Europe’s biggest conservation charity has just over £1billion invested in stock markets with the returns vital for helping protect and care for special places.The Trust looks after 780 miles of coastline, 248,000 hectares of land and over 500 historic houses, castles, monuments, gardens, parks and nature reserves.

If you no longer wish to hear from RSPB Wokingham & Bracknell Local Group, please contact RSPB Wokingham and Bracknell rspbwokinghamandbracknell@gmail.com, confirming your name and address and stating that you wish to unsubscribe from the RSPB Wokingham & Bracknell Local Group’s communications.

All illustrations by Dan Powell, Mike Langman and Mike Busby. All photographs © RSPB Wokingham & Bracknell Group Members 2019 Unless otherwise credited – all articles written by Thomas Bickerton

Cattle egrets breeding at Langstone Mill PondMost of you will have visited the Oysterbeds LNR on Hayling Island, Hampshire, the group has organised field trips to this well-known birdwatching site. I expect as well that some of you have made good use of the facilities at the nearby The Ship Inn. Well, just behind The Ship, there are breeding cattle egrets, over the past four years these birds have wintered on the fields nearby around Castle Farm, Warblington, this year these fields held up to five cattle egrets. In previous years these wintering birds had departed the area by late February, but this year the birds lingered into March, then April.In June eight cattle egrets were recorded within the little egret breeding colony, a species that has nested at Langstone Mill Pond for 10 years. So there is a possibility of seven nests. The term “nests” as opposed to “breeding pairs” is used, as males are known to be polygamous.

Golden eagles set to returnTwo eagle species could be returned to Wales for the first time since the 1800s, Cardiff University is investigating whether the landscape could support the reintroduction of the golden and white-tailed sea eagle species.The European population of both species is in decline, primarily due to human persecution and habitat loss. Feasibility studies will be carried out helping to restore Wales’ diminished biodiversity, regenerating local economies, and aiding the conservation status of both the golden and white-tailed sea eagle at a national and international levelThe plan would be to released ten young golden eagles in the autumn in the North Wales area of Snowdonia, its Welsh name Eryri will once again line up to translation as ‘Land of the Eagles’, all these young eagles will be radio satellite taggedThe golden eagle is part of the ‘booted’ or ‘true’ eagle genera. All booted eagles have feathered legs down to the toes. The golden eagle is the most common official national animal in the world – it’s the emblem of Albania, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and Kazakhstan.

• Eagles were wiped out of the welsh landscape by 1860.• There are 508 pairs of golden eagles in Scotland and 1-3 pairs in Ireland.

Operation yellowhammerThe government’s no-deal Brexit contingency plan is code-named Operation Yellowhammer, the comparisons between this plan and the farmland bird are very similar – both are declining rapidly, both futures look decidedly dodgy.Launched in June 2018, it covers 12 areas including transport, healthcare, energy, food and water. The cost of Yellowhammer is part of the £1.5bn allocated by the Treasury to government departments for Brexit preparations. Just imagine if that money was spent more wisely on the bird itself – it could undoubtedly reverse the species decline here in the UK.

WeBS low tide countsFor the past five years I have counted each and every harbour in the Solent at low tide. Low tide counting is as it states on the tin, counting birds 1.5 hours before and 1.5 hours after low tide. It differs from the normal Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) monthly count, which is at high tide when the birds are still and at roost.

Last year I counted Chichester Harbour, which is a large complexed body of water linked to Langstone Harbour by a channel on the northern side. The harbour is a land-locked area of deep salt-water channels, shingle and sand with mud bank boundaries.

It supports an extensive area of eelgrass - Zostera marina, which is a very important food plant for the dark-bellied brent goose, and as such is covered by international

legislation, being designated as a Ramsar site. As with all the harbours it is very popular for water-sports enthusiasts, which is directly in conflict with the wildlife within the harbour.Each harbour gets counted four times from October – January, with the objective of recording the number of birds and species that are using preordained sectors. The aims of the counts is not to record the total number

of birds using the mudflats, but to record the number using sections of the mud against a time factor. This analysis then provides which area of the harbour provides the riches source of food for the different bird species.We can identify from the data where each species is feeding at a given time. The harbour covers 3,161 ha, from the count it gives us a mean total of birds of 28,968, which then corresponds to a mean bird density of 9.16 birds per ha.Individual species are then broken down into their own mean density, if we take two of the most important species, the dark-bellied brent goose and dunlin, we find out that the goose has a mean density of 2.77 birds per ha, (8,756 birds), and the dunlin 4.76 birds per ha, (15,000 birds). This information of where these birds are feeding is vital in understanding their needs, especially as public access and activities are increasing within the harbour on a yearly basis.