FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

The  British Birds  Bird Photograph of the Year 2013 winners were as follows: BIRD PHOTOGRAPH OF THE YEAR 2013  Peregrine Falcons  Falco peregrinus,  Norwich, Norfolk, June 2012. (Canon EOS 5D III, Canon 400 mm f4 + 1.4x converter; 1/1250, f8, ISO 320.)  Steven Jefferson Here’s Simon winding up to hand out the prizes… (pic by Peter Baughan)

A second consecutive wet, cool and unsettled summer across Britain has wiped out large populations of bees, moths and butterflies, according to a new National Trust report. Common Blue Butterflies (Earthweek) - Butterflies have been very scarce across the United Kingdom this year, according to a National Trust report. It warns that the drop in the number of winged insects could cause birds and bats go to hungry for the remainder of this year. “Insect populations have been really very low. Then when they have got going, they’ve been hit by a spell of cool, windy weather... so our environment is just not bouncing with butterflies or anything else,”said Matthew Oates, a National Trust naturalist who worked on the report. It says that the dearth of airborne insects could cause martins, swifts, swallows and warblers to struggle to survive in the coming months. A delayed spring that started with the coldest March in 50 years across the U.K. caused frogs and toads to struggl...

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...