Great Weekend!

Well I have had a bumper weekend of raptors and wildlife! I have seen no shorter than 6 species on my patch and even saw some other great wildlife including Hare, Fox & cubs and a nice male Wheatear.

On the bird front it is extremely sad news that another Golden Eagle has been proved poisoned in Scotland, proving that despite our wildlife laws they are still routinely ignored at the expense of the countrys amazing wildlife. You can read more on http://www.raptorpolitics.org.uk/

I have also seen that a Black Kite has appeared in Glouscesteshire, Black Kite's are a smaller relative of our native Red Kite and probably one of the most widespread birds of prey found in the world. The UK has seen Black Kites on its shores and its not an unusual sight amongst a group of our Red Kite's but they don't tend to stay for long, there is even examples of Black and Red Kites breeding here in the UK although I think that might have been a one off. Black Kite's are big scavengers more commonly seen in huge numbers flying above waste sites in large cities like Delhi, I can only imagine its the same image when Red Kites used to line the streets of London feeding off scraps. Read more at http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/symonds-yat-raptors.html#cr

I wanted to draw your attention to another web site found on our links page http://www.europeanraptors.org/ because they have some fantastic new interviews online. I have just finished reading two really interesting interviews by field biologists one on White Tailed Sea Eagle in Norway and the other on Eurasian Kestrels in the UK, have a look as they make interesting reading.

On a local level and a sad one in a previous post I mentioned that I would find out how many egg's a local pair of Peregrines had this season. Well that post hadn't been on line for 24hrs before I got a sad e-mail saying squabbles had broke out between the Peregrines and the pair of Ravens also found on the rock face and the Ravens were recorded smashing the Peregrines egg's. Very sad news for the hard workers of the local Peregrine watch, as I have no doubt if the eggs were hatched the Parents would have put up a stronger fight but nature works in cruel ways in our minds.

Finally I hope you have all had the chance to sign the petition on the 38 degrees website regarding cuts with UK's wildlife laws, if not it only takes 2 minutes to really stand up for what matters other wise we'll have more stories like the poisoned Golden Eagle I started the post with.