As I mentioned in posts one to three in this series, I have a particular interest in birds of prey. It began when I first worked for the RSPB in 1979. I was posted to a remote part of north Wales, living in a caravan on a farm and asked to watch two pairs of peregrine falcons which had a history of being robbed of either eggs or young. Two years later I was sent to the Isle of Mull, where I enjoyed a full breeding season surveying white-tailed eagles, peregrines and golden eagles. Following that I spent the next breeding season in the Lake District checking up on pairs of peregrines and golden eagles.
Where my interest came from I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the wilderness areas these birds tend to inhabit that drew me to them. But I also began to experience the strength of personal feeling that tends to surround the birds and their human admirers. With the RSPB, one was parachuted into a new area each season and had little contact with local people. My experience of the animosity between certain individuals in these areas was second or even third hand but in the last year I have unfortunately become personally involved locally.
Several years ago I began watching a pair of merlins nesting high in a mid-Wales cwm. Last summer – watching from a great distance – I located the nest site, and informed a trusted friend who happens to be a very experienced and highly regarded ornithologist. He in turn informed Tony Cross, also a very experienced ornithologist, and a bird ringer for about forty years. I think it’s fair to say that both of them are part of the birding “establishment” in Wales. At the time I was (almost) the only person who knew the exact location of the nest so it made sense for me to lead them to it. In Tony’s professional hands the ringing of the five chicks was successful.
About a week later another raptor enthusiast visited the cwm and saw no signs of merlins – adults or young. On a second visit he found the remains of one merlin chick. He had seen my report of the ringing expedition on the Ceredigion bird blog and put two and two together, getting five. It was the ringing that had caused the failure of the breeding attempt, and the adults had fled. Circumstantial evidence there certainly was but no more than that. He began questioning me in great detail by email about the visit, but, knowing how these things might get out of hand, I politely refused to get involved. Little did I know at that moment how nasty the situation would get. This man later complained about Tony Cross both to the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) – the ringing authority for the whole of the UK – and Natural Resources Wales, who issue licences to visit the nests of Schedule One bird species in the country. This was beginning to look like a vendetta. But in both cases, to use the legal terminology, it was found that he had no case to answer.
A couple of months later an opinion piece appeared in my local paper. I know the journalist quite well and up until that moment had considered him a friend; a good friend even. But he has never, to my knowledge, had any interest in birds or ornithology. He used sections of my blog (without permission) about the merlins to flesh out his uninformed opinion that as a result of the ringing attempt, they had failed to rear young. I can only assume that the “raptor enthusiast” (Mr X) had put him up to it although the journalist denied it. Tony wrote a long and detailed defence of ringing for the newspaper. The journalist later informed me it was “libellous, lying, long-winded, disjointed and meandering”. As for Tony Cross : “Never mind, he must be all right, mustn’t he, otherwise he wouldn’t have received all those awards, would he…….?”. I just don’t understand where all the bile came from. But one thing is for sure; Tony Cross will have done a hundred times more for wildlife conservation than a bird artist and a journalist between them will ever do.
This year I visited the same cwm a number of times. I am very pleased to say that the merlins were back, and by early June they were feeding young. The thought of sharing even the same mountain with the “raptor enthusiast” was not a welcome one, but I suppose it was inevitable. Visiting with a trusted friend one day in mid-July I recognised him. My friend and I kept a low profile. However he later sought us out and began his interrogation. Getting steadily more agitated, he was just about to leave but could no longer resist: “Did you hear about the ringing?” He is obviously still obsessed with what he must believe are ‘his’ birds and just cannot let it go. His parting shot was that he “didn’t approve” of my posts on the Ceredigion Bird Blog. I can’t say that I covered myself with glory either and with the benefit of hindsight should have kept my mouth shut. It was a very unpleasant encounter.
As for the birds themselves: having successfully reared at least four young, the adults took them from the nest site to a grassy hillside about 300 yards away, dotted with scree and rocky outcrops. This served as their base camp for a number of days. On one visit I was observing them from a respectable distance when one juvenile left its perch and flew directly towards me, landing about fifteen yards away. A fraction of a second later another youngster appeared from behind me and landed right next to the first. It looked over its shoulder, saw me and they flew off together like a shot. The whole episode lasted perhaps two seconds, just enough time for me to realise that I didn’t have my camera to hand. I saw little more, really, than a fast-moving jumble of wings and tails. But it confirmed for me that young merlins are inquisitive, impetuous and easily get bored!
Ironically, I found myself on the same side of an argument as X earlier this year. Another birder (Z) was posting photographs of peregrines to a Facebook page, of which he just happened to be the moderator. X responded that it wasn’t a very good idea to do so, and I backed him up in the most tactful way possible, noting particularly that the location was barely disguised. Z justified his own behaviour at great length and then shortly later began criticising me on Facebook about my own blog posts. He had obviously not read them thoroughly because his criticisms were well wide of the mark. I took myself off the Facebook page immediately and have not been back. It is so easy to become embroiled in finger-pointing and vindictiveness where raptors are concerned. We all believe we are correct and who’s to say where the reality lies?
NB : For those that want to read more about merlins, I highly recommend “The Merlins of the Welsh Marches” by D.A. Orton, which is available secondhand for a few quid from online book retailers.
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