FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

by Steve Portugal Sometimes it can get a little depressing when all the news about the state of the environment and Britain's countryside is bad; farmland devoid of birdlife, wetlands being drained and forestry being cut down. But it's not all doom and gloom, over the last decade many threatened species have been able to make successful comebacks, thanks mainly to the help of conservation charities and organisations such as English Nature, the RSPB and hundreds of dedicated volunteers from estate agents to students to housewives and the police.

BirdWatch Ireland has warmly welcomed the recent announcement by Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food Simon Coveney that farmers undertaking actions to conserve critically-threatened farmland birds will get priority access to substantial funding within Ireland's new Rural Development Programme. If properly implemented, this offers hope of halting declines and restoring bird populations in parts of their range. Ireland's biodiversity is facing very severe threats, as evidenced by declining populations of many farmland birds and losses in extent and quality of many semi-natural habitats in the mosaic of Ireland's farmed landscapes. There has been extensive research in the UK, in particular, which has related farmland bird declines to changes in agricultural practices since the 1970s. Specific causes for these changes included a variety of farming practices, including increased use of pesticides and fertilisers, increased mechanisation and losses of hedgerow extent an...

The dunlin is often a good sign of a well-managed peatland, but too few good sites remain (Dunlin by  Chris Gomersall ) From Dartmoor to the Peak District and from the North York Moors to the Lake District, England’s uplands are iconic landscapes that improve the environment, help combat climate change, provide havens for nature and benefits for people, such as clean drinking water. Nowhere is this statement more true than upland peatlands. But today a partnership of wildlife groups and industry is reminding government only four per cent of England’s upland peatlands are in good ‘ecological’ condition, and the remainder is not living up to its potential for providing homes for nature and combating climate change.

Here is the RSPB's report on bird crime in 2012 which includes accounts of individual offences against bird legislation. The full PDF can be viewed full screen, with larger text or zoomed in  here .

Black-throated Diver by  Chris Gomersall A pioneering project to recreate ideal breeding habitat for one of Scotland’s rarest birds on some Scottish lochs has met with remarkable success. The black-throated diver, a species that only breeds in freshwater lochs in the north-west of the country, is benefitting from the scheme to create special floating rafts that provide the necessary conditions to breed and raise chicks.

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...