FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

Trophy exhibition on Facebook This Lebanese poacher proudly displays a shot White Stork A freshly-shot, still living Short-toed Eagle is proudly presented as a trophy. Armed men pose with freshly killed cranes and pelicans. Another hunter holding a dead Lesser Spotted Eagle grins into the camera lens. His hunting companion has neatly draped his bag for the day - hundreds of shot song birds - on a bedsheet. Two children, hardly eight years of age - inspect wide-eyed two dead Honey Buzzards that their father has brought back today from the hunt. Another still life shows nine freshly shot White Storks in the foreground with behind them the hunter, completely relaxed with a cigarette in one hand and the beak of one of the storks in the other. Such photos give an idea of the incredible damage that Lebanese poachers inflict on the European bird populations. There are several hundreds, perhaps thousands of such trophy pictures. Most are taken by the poachers themselves to show off to...

The White-throated Needletail on the Isle of Harris, by David Campbell An enthusiast who travelled to the Western Isles to view a rare bird has told of his "dismay" after watching it fly into a wind turbine and die. The white-throated needletail, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia, was spotted on Harris. About 30 birdwatchers travelled to the island to see the unusual visitor, which has only been recorded five times in the UK since 1950. However, they then saw it die after colliding with the wind turbine. Birdwatcher David Campbell, from Surrey, told the BBC Scotland news website that the incident took place late on Wednesday afternoon. Mr Campbell, who is now making his way home to south east England, said: "We just watched the whole thing with dismay." He added that on a previous bird watching trip he had seen a migratory wryneck hit by a train. A relative of the common swift, the white-throated needletail is s...

Skylark by   Andy Hay Cuts to the environment budget announced today prove the need for a radical rethink on how we protect our threatened wildlife. That's the message from the RSPB following today's announcement that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), alongside several other Government departments, is set to be hit with a 10 per cent cut.  Added to the cuts that have already been announced, this leaves Defra's budget at almost half where it was in 2010 in real terms. Today's cut is likely to fall disproportionately on conservation as spending on flooding issues and the badger cull is likely to be protected. The news comes a month after the groundbreaking State of Nature report was launched by Sir David Attenborough and 25 leading conservation organisations which revealed that our wildlife is in serious trouble with 60 per cent of UK species in decline. 'We need a radical rethink of how we can protect our plants, anima...

Carrion Crow (BTO) A black crow flies over - but is it a Crow, a Rook or even a Raven? Our latest bird ID video attempts to help you to separate these confusing species, along with their smaller cousins: Jackdaw and Chough.  Watch the Corvids bird ID video now . If you enjoy our Youtube channel, subscribe for free to receive updates when new videos are posted. Related Downloads   Bird Table 70 - Jackdaw article   (343.5 KB) http://www.bto.org/news-events/news/2013-06/crow-rook-or-raven

World premiere of the film about CABS in England Bonn/Sheffield.  The activist operations by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter for better protection of migrant birds are the theme of a new documentary film that has its world premiere at the Sheffield Docs Film Festival this weekend. Under the title  Emptying The Skies  the New York bestselling author Jonathan Franzen and director Roger Kass expose how millions of European songbirds land in the cooking pot every year, under the pretext of retaining ‘old traditions’ and ‘sustainable use’. Bestselling author and bird lover Jonathan Franzen (CABS) The screenplay is written around a group of international activists from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter, who travel every year in spring and autumn to the poaching hotspots - mainly in Southern Europe - to combat illegal bird hunting and trapping. Jonathan Franzen and the film crew shadowed the operations - now well known internationally as  CABS bird protection c...