BBC Countryfile film at GWCT farm to help promote the BFBC

BBC Countryfile film at the GWCT's farm at Loddington, for the forthcoming BFBC in February

I spent Friday with GWCT colleagues Jim Egan and Phil Jarvis filming a piece for BBC Countryfile, all about the forthcoming Big Farmland Bird Count (BFBC). The GWCT farm at Loddington in Leicestershire hosted the day and some local farmers came along to attend the bird ID training event and to talk to the programme as well.

I must say that the presenter Ellie Harrison and the crew were all charming and helped along by bright sunshine all day, seemed to get what they wanted for the programme which will go out on the 8^th of February. 

Countryfile presenter and farmer Adam Henson, will also be filmed doing the BFBC on his own farm in the Cotswolds, helped by a good friend of mine, Neil Harris of Natural England – so no miss identification there as Neil is a top notch birder!

Last year saw the launch of this GWCT inspired bird count and 500 farmers took part, but already this year with excellent support from a wide range of other countryside based organisations, around 1600 people have downloaded the count forms from our website, so hopefully there will be loads of binoculars focussed on an assortment of species between the 7^th & 14^th of February – the count week.

So make sure you watch the programme and also find just half an hour to get out onto the farm and note down the species of birds that you spot. Send in your results to the GWCT and we will make sure that we get lots of good publicity on your behalf – lets show just how much is happening on farms for wildlife!

For more information and also to download your recording sheets if you have not already done so – go to: https://www.gwct.org.uk/farming/big-farmland-bird-count/

Is wildlife photography becoming too "Arty-farty"? Discuss.

The 2014 GWCT photographic competition's adult category winning image - a superb shot of a Cuckoo. 

Each winter, as part of my birthday present, my daughter treats me to tickets for the Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, held in the Natural History Museum in London. I really look forward to this occasion as not only do I get to see my daughter - we always have a good lunch together after viewing the exhibition – but the photography on show is amazing too.

As this year is the 50^th year that the exhibition has been held, there was a selection of previous winners and notable pictures being shown on a loop, which clearly demonstrated just how images have got better and better as technology has improved over the years. The image quality is now unbelievably sharp and many of the photos are truly spectacular.

However, that said, both my daughter and I thought that the competition maybe, just maybe, has started to become a little too “arty-farty” for its own good. It is though the judges can’t just choose a spectacular photograph of an animal or landscape that shows off its individual beauty or indeed, ugliness or brutality. No, it seems that to be chosen as “worthy” of inclusion for the exhibition, increasingly a photograph has to be taken from a particularly strange angle, shot in weird light, purposefully blurred or depicting only a small section of the target species.

Of course photography should be clever, different and often challenge or even shock the onlooker. But sometimes the most amazing photographs are relatively simple, portraying an incredible landscape or spectacular individual species in its natural environment, allowing nature to show itself off, without the photographer manipulating the outcome too much.

On occasions the “arty” shot can produce the most stunning of images and should definitely make up a part of anyone’s photography portfolio, but not in my opinion, become the required format to win prizes.

Don’t forget that the GWCT’s photographic competition is now open and ready to welcome all your entries – arty and otherwise!!  Last year was without doubt the best range and highest standard that we have ever had – so come on, get out there and get that shutter whirring!  2015 could see your entry win first prize!

If you are interested in entering the competition, go to:

https://www.gwct.org.uk/wildlife/the-julian-gardner-awards/

Spider venom project to provide lifeline for bees!

"Come on now - spit it out!"

A headline caught my eye recently “Government funded spider venom project to provide lifeline for bees”. I immediately had a mental image of scientist in a white coat, surrounded by happy buzzing bees, talking to a large, captive spider and saying “spit your venom out and I promise to let you go”!

Apparently this is a £1 million project led by Arch UK Biocides Limited and in collaboration with the University of Durham, the Food and Research Agency (FERA) and I2LRESEARCH LTD, which will receive over £650,000 from Government to further develop an environmentally friendly pesticide which is harmless to non-target species including bees. This next generation pesticide will use naturally occurring peptides, found in spider venom, to produce an orally effective treatment which can be produced commercially.

Venom peptides, known to be harmless to mammals, are fused to a ‘carrier’ protein that can then be applied to crops on a large scale. When treated crops are eaten by pests, such as slugs or beetles, the ‘carrier’ protein transports the spider toxin from the pests gut and into the nervous system; eradicating the threat without impacting on other species. 

That is a very bold statement this early on - "without impacting on other species"! We shall see - but lets hope that given extensive trials, scientists can indeed make it "target specific".

The initial programme will develop formulations targeting slugs and beetle pests of wheat and oil seed rape. 

Dairy farmers need our support.

Waiting to be milked. But for how much longer?

Dairy farmers are once again hitting the news for all the wrong reasons as milk prices plummet. A massively steep drop has occurred from around 34p per litre seen at the start of last year, to prices now quoted in the low 20s in some cases.

Asda, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland are selling four pints of milk for just 89p, while Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose are not far behind at £1, making a pint of milk cheaper than mineral water in most supermarkets.

To add to the woes, FIRST Milk – a large farmer co-operative, have announced that their farmers will not be paid their next scheduled milk cheque on January 12 as significant cash flow issues have emerged at the co-operative.

Unfortunately in the short term things look as though they are only going to get worse before they get better again. Many think that more dairy farmers will go bust in the EU this year than has ever happened before.

It is not just that Supermarkets are using milk as a lost leader, which must surely devalue the product in the public’s eyes, but it is also that milk supplies remain high, as the world is producing far too much milk.

Independent dairy analyst Ian Potter says “If anyone is thinking these are the final cuts they are very optimistic and are not reading the tea leaves. The pinch point will come in the spring and unless things change we are going to be in a very serious situation”.

I always feel that dairy farmers, almost more than any other type of farming, are so dedicated and “tied into” what they do – milking their cows morning and evening, 365 days of the year. So don’t just grab the cheapest milk when you shop – a few extra pence spent on your pint can help to see our British farmers through this crisis. Also, make sure it is British milk that you buy!

Otherwise, all we will be left with in the future will be a few massive, industrial scale indoor milking units, with cows never feeling the grass under their hooves. Meanwhile we will find ourselves explaining to future generations how black and white cows used to walk about in the fields and children listening in disbelief.       

Strike a light - its bright out there!

Do we really need all these lights blazing away? Just look at England in particular! 

It’s a good job that the three wise men were following the “Star of Bethlehem” over two thousand years ago, because if they tried to do the same in today’s light polluted skies, for instance around Glasgow, the UK city twinned with Bethlehem, they would have a fat chance of finding the baby Jesus!

Perhaps it was this fact that set Glasgow city council members thinking. I imagine that, having finished their mid-winter meeting on twinning arrangements with the holy town, they all wandered out into Glasgow’s cold winter air and looked up at an orange, milky sky, completely devoid of any stars at all.  

The city has however begun to take action; recently it has won a contract worth millions of pounds under plans from the governments green fund. Street lights will be replaced with low-energy LEDs so that the familiar sodium glow gives way to bright white light, while lights are also being switched off or dimmed to save money.

As well as saving money, it will be a boon to sky watchers in the surrounding area, as LED lights provide more illumination on the ground and less to the clouds. Close to 100% of the light goes downward, unlike conventional street lights which send a third of their glow into the night sky, causing light pollution. So, well done Glasgow I say!!

So it was with great interest that I read a report which the Labour party has just unveiled, where they had surveyed 1141 councils in England responsible for a total of 5.7 million street lights. It found that 558,000 lights are now being switched off at night, eight times as many as in May 2010. A further 797,000 are being dimmed, ten times as many as when the Coalition came to power.

This is great news is it not? Well, no actually, apparently not. The Labour party lambasted the Government for “plunging Britain into darkness", claiming the number of lights switched off had "soared" in recent years. Hilary Benn, the shadow (get it!) community secretary, suggested that the safety of people walking in the dark could be put at risk by the money saving measures.

Apparently, across all councils, 29 per cent of lights are being turned off or dimmed at night in Conservative-controlled areas, compared with 13 per cent in Labour areas. As street lighting in England costs councils approximately £616m per year and can account for up to 30% of their carbon emissions, I will leave it up to you to make your own conclusions. 

It’s easy to forget that being bathed in light is a relatively modern phenomenon. Although electric streetlights first began appearing in European capitals in the mid-1800s, widespread street lighting did not become common place until well into the 20th century. Nowadays, less than 10% of the UK population can see the beauty of a natural night sky full of stars.

Also, it is worth remembering that nearly a third of vertebrates and some 60% of invertebrates are nocturnal, depending on darkness for survival. High levels of light pollution can mean that they may become disoriented, which can disrupt migration, cause a decrease in reproduction and reduce the time allowing them to forage properly for food.

Just one final thought on the importance of seeing the night sky clearly. The stars have always played an important part in religious ceremonies, while navigators used them to travel at night, both over land and at sea. 

As galaxies go, the Milky Way which we see from earth is a bit of a “middleweight” really, as it only has between 100 to 400 billion stars. However, when you look up into the night sky, the most you can see from any one point on the globe is only around 2,500. (The largest “heavyweight" galaxy that we know about on the other hand, has over 100 trillion stars).

I always feel that this unbelievable display should also play another important role, making sure that if any one of us ever becomes rather “full of our own importance”, then a quick look up at the galaxies should promptly put us firmly back in our place.

But if we cannot see the stars………………………

Good vibrations!

The Pheasant - perhaps more clued into their surroundings than we might sometimes think!

I was interested to hear that US scientists tracking Golden-winged warblers, found that they "evacuated" their nesting site one day before a massive tornado arrived. Back in April this year, the scientists, who were using tiny geolocators to monitor the bird’s movements, showed that they left the Appalachians and flew 700km (400 miles) south to the Gulf of Mexico. Remarkably, the warblers had completed their seasonal migration just days earlier, settling down to nest after a 5,000km (3,100 mile) journey from Colombia.

The next day, devastating storms swept across the south and central US causing widespread destruction.

Working with colleagues from the Universities of Tennessee and Minnesota, Dr Streby tagged 20 golden-winged warblers in May 2013, in the Cumberland Mountains of north-eastern Tennessee. The birds nest and breed in this region every summer, and can be spotted around the Great Lakes and the Appalachian Mountains.

After the storm had blown over, the team recaptured five of the warblers and removed the geolocators. These are tiny devices weighing about half a gram, which measure light levels. Based on the timing and length of the days they record, these gadgets allow scientists to calculate and track the approximate location of migratory birds.

In this case, all five indicated that the birds had taken unprecedented evasive action, beginning one to two days ahead of the storm's arrival. They escaped just south of the tornadoes' path - and then went straight home again.

The scientists believe that the birds were “tipped-off” by the deep rumble that tornadoes produce, well below what humans can hear. Noise in this "infra-sound" range travels thousands of kilometres, and may serve as something of an early warning system for animals that can pick it up.

This amazing story reminded me of my own little tale related to sound carrying over big distances.

On the morning of the 11^th December 2005, I was awoken by what seemed like every cock Pheasant in my neighbourhood “crowing” furiously. I always sleep with the windows wide open and so the noise was really loud, and what was so unusual this time is that they all kept going on and on. Often something will trigger cock pheasants off, sonic booms or thunder for instance, but within a few seconds they have fallen silent again.

But on this particular morning they seemed to be really upset by whatever had disturbed their slumbers. I looked at the clock which read a minute past 6am, so I got up to make a cup of tea and thought no more about this unusual pre-dawn chorus.

It was not until later in the day that I turned on the news to find out that people across Hertfordshire were awoken that morning by a huge explosion, described by Hertfordshire's Chief Fire Officer as "the largest incident of its kind in peace time Europe". The Fire Brigade and other emergency services were called to attend Buncefield Oil Depot in Hemel Hempstead following reports of a number of huge explosions as 20 large tanks blew up.  

The British Geological Survey measured the first and largest explosion which occurred at 06:01 at 2.4 on the Richter scale. So, that was what had set my local, mid Hampshire Pheasants off on their early morning raucous outburst!

Just out of interest I looked up how far away Hemel Hempstead is from my house as the crow (or Pheasant) flies – approximately 63 miles away. Doesn't quite match the antics of the Golden-winged warblers – but still pretty fascinating don’t you think!