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.

Fight Against Illegal Bird Killing, Trapping, Hunting & Egg Collecting Poisoned Golden Eagle by Murdo Macleod Show your support for stricter laws against bird crimes to help save birds from illegal killing, poaching, persecution, trapping, hunting & egg collecting. We can use power in numbers via social media to express our concerns & encourage enforcement of stricter laws against, change in governments' attitudes towards, & raise awareness of, bird crimes & what needs to be done to stop these atrocities. 'Like' the Fight Bird Crimes &  Fight Bird Crimes Facebook Page at  facebook.com/FightBirdCrimes  where you can have your say, post information, or share articles. You can join here  by clicking the 'Like' button below. You can also help spread the word & show your support for the cause on Twitter & Google+ by using the buttons below. Follow @FightBirdCrimes Tweet #TwitterStories Worldwide we have ...

       Paperback /  325 Pages /  Pelagic Publishing (2012) /  ISBN 978-1907807299 /  RRP £12.99 Review #1 by Mike Everett for British Birds Quite early in chapter one, reading about Mark Avery’s time as a deer researcher on Rum, I came across the bizarre statement that ‘our base… looked across Mull to Skye and the Cuillins…’ and wondered whether this boded well for the rest of the book. I need not have worried; it must have been an editorial mistake. This is a marvellous account of one man’s work for bird conservation, reflecting Mark’s impressive birding and academic background as well as his sharp intellect, his sure grasp of strategy and his huge commitment to his vocation. His well-known sense of humour is there too, as is that enviable facility at communication which made him such a great asset to the RSPB.

Murmuration of Starlings by Walter Baxter The mystery behind the movements of flocking starlings could be explained by the areas of light and dark created as they fly, new research suggests. The research found that flocking starlings aim to maintain an optimum density at which they can gather data on their surroundings. This occurs when they can see light through the flock at many angles, a state known as marginal opacity. The subsequent pattern of light and dark, formed as the birds attempt to achieve the necessary density, is what provides vital information to individual birds within the flock.

( Collared ) Pratincole in flight by Daniel Pettersson Is it a Collared, Oriental, or Black-winged Pratincole? How about a Cream-coloured Courser? Use these pages, containing the most useful online info in one place, to compare features, habits & calls, & identify that Swallow-plover... Collared Pratincole (Glareola pratincola) Oriental Pratincole (Glareola maldivarum) Black-winged Pratincole (Glareola nordmanni) Cream-coloured Courser (Cursorius cursor)

A new report has been published today detailing the recovery prospects for golden eagles in southern Scotland. The SNH-commissioned report has been written by two undisputed experts (Alan Fielding and Paul Haworth), both of whom were involved with the impressive Golden Eagle Conservation Framework report that was published in 2008. The report has only just been made available on SNH’s website so we’ve not had a chance to thoroughly digest its findings – although we intend to come back to it in due course. Having skimmed through it, it looks like a very detailed analysis of the various issues that could affect the recovery of this tiny population (see  here  for a previous blog entry on the perilous state of the golden eagle population in southern Scotland), including, of course, the effect of illegal persecution. This photo below shows the graphic effect of persecution on golden eagles in south Scotland – this one was found shot and critically injured on a driven grouse...

It's unbelievable to think that, just a couple of decades ago,  Yellow-legged Gull  ( Larus michahellis ) was, for many, an irrelevant yellow-legged 'form' of our familiar  Herring Gull  encountered only while on holiday in the Mediterranean. Following its elevation to full specific status and the popularity of gull-watching dramatically increasing throughout the 2000s, the prominence of Yellow-legged Gull as a British bird has risen greatly to where it is today. Yellow-legged Gull is a regular non-breeding visitor across the bulk of England, with notable exceptions being the far north and northwest — Yorkshire is about as far north as the species is regularly seen, and it is particularly rare on the west coast north of Cheshire. It is rather scarce and localised in its appearance in Wales, while it remains a genuinely rare species in Scotland. Its strongholds in England are across the Midlands, East Anglia and the South-East, where it may appear in considerable ...