Magpies: Not guilty
March 12th, 2010 | by lucy |
The clamour for magpie culls is like the baying of a crowd at a witch trial. There’s no basis in fact for the claim that magpies are threatening British songbirds, only entrenched irrational ideas about corvids.
Organisations like the Songbird Survival Trust have in the past made badly misjudged calls for such culls. The real cause of population declines of species such as the bullfinch and yellowhammer is human activity: unsustainable land management, unecological farming practices and rampant urbanisation. A new large-scale study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology has confirmed this.
Anyone reaching for their airgun when they see a magpie in the garden is just gratifying a deep-seated superstitious instinct, which equates corvids with death. Or exhibiting a highly selective appreciation of nature, which would like to see the predators of its favourite species wiped off the face of the earth.
for more information, see article by Mark Whittingham Does predator control alter bird populations?
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The oldest osprey of the UK – and probably the world – has returned to her eyrie in the Scottish highlands. When she left for West Africa at the end of last summer, no one expected her to return. At 26 she’s lived 3 times longer than most female ospreys. In her life she’s laid 58 eggs and hatched 48 chicks, a massive individual contribution to the survival of ospreys in Scotland, where there are still only about 200 breeding pairs. The questions now are if her mate will return and if she is still fertile. Events can be followed on the 
The construction company currently finishing off the Shard building in London, which will be the UK’s tallest skyscraper, recently had to call the council to remove a squatter from the 72nd floor: a young fox. He was surviving on scraps left by builders. After a check-up at the Riverside Animal Centre, the fox has been released on the streets of Bermondsey, having shown the type of curiosity we associate with cats. 
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