Double Click on the image here to open it in it’s own window.
After the exotic yesterday I was brought down to earth with a bump. I check out Exminster Marsh daily. I am on the look out for Water Pipit and Brambling which I am pretty certain I will bump in to before the year is out. Of course, I would also like to get good photographs of both and I am putting in the time which is probably the only way to do it. I also am very frustrated by the number of times that I disturb Snipe sometimes only a few feet away but still I don’t see them until they are flushed. This is driving me around the bend to be honest. So all in all today’s visit was pretty uninspiring. All the usual protagonists were about. I was quite surprised to see a small group of Lapwing Plover amongst the Teal on the Spoonbill pond. I am assuming that the resident breeding colony have been joined by some migrant birds as from time to time I saw quite large flocks. I can’t see why the RSPB seems to be so obsessed with Lapwings, can you believe that the focal point of Exminster Marsh for example is to establish the perfect habitat for this species. Of course other species benifit as well but I find it hard to get my head around this as they give figures of 156.000 breeding pairs of this bird in the UK. Why all the outlay of cash from them, plus countless man hours from their wardens. At times they are a strange collection of people who do the oddest things like introduce Bustards to Salisbury plain and Sea Eagles in Scotland yet I haven’t had a Song Thrush in my garden for 12 years but they don’t appear to be addressing this at all, I wonder what their true agenda really is. Check the RSPB Lapwing page for their facts about this species
You might also be interested to know that the Crane for example has been establishing it’s self into East Anglia, albeit very slowly without any intervention whatsoever from the RSPB and in actual fact it is thought that the lack of interference from bodies such as the RSPB has been the reason for the success of the species. Also the Spoonbills that bred in Scotland this year did so without the knowledge and interference from the RSPB so it does open up a bit of a debate on their activities. I for one am also very suspicious of the motives of introducing the Osprey into Scotland, again at great expense and feel that it would have been more beneficial to direct their monies in a more general direction rather than concentrate on one glamour bird that in world wide terms is neither endangered or rare.
Back to Exminster Marsh, the RSPB are always fiddling about with the habitat there, be it digging or creating new ditches complete with JCB diggers for days on end. They tramp over the Marsh in white suites spraying weed killer on the sedges….. yes they really do, do that! In August one poor lady warden spent the day with a strimmer chopping reeds down then a few weeks later cattle were grazing the very same field and trampled the remaining reeds down completely, begging the question, “What the hell was she doing that for if the cattle were coming onto that pasture very soon anyway”.
I can give you numerous examples of work that in my opinion has impacted on the welfare of the birds on their marsh including wardens free to trample on so called sensitive areas including one individual who I watched while he searched for the Cattle Egret that we had recently, with absolutely no regard for the other birds he was disturbing, I was watching quietly out of sight and that is what he should have been doing and only goes to prove that he knew absolutely nothing about the protocol he should have being observing and not breaking.
Still, it’s their plaything, they own it so I suppose they can do what they like with it. I fear they will not be happy until they have turned the whole of England in to one lovely tidy and managed zoo where every bird has a ring on it and can’t come and go without being logged in by either them or the BTO! I am pretty certain that would be utopia in their eyes.