FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

Wood Warbler (BTO) Migrant birds are likely to be particularly vulnerable to climate change because they can be affected by changing conditions on the breeding grounds, wintering grounds or passage areas in between. Many  long distance migrants that breed in the UK and winter in Africa are in severe decline , and previous BTO work has shown this can be related to  changing conditions in Africa , which affect overwinter survival, as well as to  conditions on British breeding grounds . BTO research published last year showed that although  conditions in Africa can ‘carry-over’  and affect the timing of nesting in this country, the most important factor influencing breeding was spring temperature in the UK. A new study by the BTO and the  University of Sheffield  builds upon the work by considering the impacts of climatic variation in passage regions, as well as the breeding and non-breeding grounds. It focuses on three declining migratory s...

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...