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Letters to
the Editor - August 2007
No problem pulling the birds
I can still pull the birds. Sadly though, at my age,
I refer to the feathered variety. Regular items refer to the demise
of the songbirds and most birds in general. However, I experience a
great variety of birds in my garden in a small village in Cambridgeshire.
What the attraction is remains a mystery but a recent count revealed
twenty- seven different species in one day alone.
I must admit to being somewhat economical with the
truth as I include the field also at the bottom of my garden. I recently
decided to take greater notice of the bird numbers and revealed the
following species: house sparrow, hedge sparrow, long-tailed tit, robin,
chaffinch, greenfinch, blackcap, blue tit, wren, blackbird, thrush,
starling, goldfinch, pigeon, collared dove, jackdaw, green woodpecker,
magpie and pheasant in the garden; and in the field, rook, crow, kestrel,
sparrowhawk, gull, heron, partridge and a fabulous buzzard overhead.
Trees in my garden include a very large willow, Himalayan
pine, beautiful red acer palmatum, juniper sky rocket and three very
high larch. A great deal of nesting habitat which is readily used.
Isn’t nature wonderful?
David Bell, Cambridgeshire
Not distressing but a privilege
I notice there has been a number of letters calling
for the cull of raptors and, last month, magpies are for ‘the
chop’. These birds are only doing what they have to do, not killing
for the sake of it, but to survive and feed their young as nature intended.
Must we do away with everything that does not fit into the scheme of
our lives.
I live in outer London and recently a sparrowhawk
visited my garden not a stone’s throw away from my kitchen door.
I watched him for an hour catching mice feeding on the fallen seeds
from my bird feeders. I felt this a great privilege. I suggest if this
is distressing then stop feeding the garden birds and then the kestrels,
sparrowhawks and magpies won’t be attracted to easy pickings.
I too feed and love my garden birds, they give me
great joy, but come on all you folk, live and let live.
June Ward, by email
Pets or pests?
For many months now, badgers and sparrowhawks seem
to be coming in for much criticism in Countryman. Being a semi-urbanite
dweller, my comments on its validity must be muted as the problems
they are alleged to perpetrate are not seen in this area. I am a very
enthusiastic walker and flora lover/twitcher and have a deep affinity
with the countryside, spend much time there and in sixty years can
only recall seeing two badgers – both dead victims of cars – with
sparrowhawks not much more.
It is regularly proposed by letters and articles
that control and culling of these ‘pests’ must be instigated
by man – surely, double standards here? Most readers, I would
suggest, are avid domestic pet lovers – cats, dogs and horses
particularly – and would be horrified at suggestions that these
ever-increasing hordes of creatures should be placed under any form
of state control, let alone culling.
Pet cats are known to be the largest predator of
small birds, pet horses abound in fields in these days of set-aside
and rapidly increasing foreign food imports, rendering them unfit for
any natural flora and fauna, and pet dogs, with their mounds of droppings
everywhere or hanging in plastic bags from fences and hedgerows, surely
cannot contribute to a healthy human environment.
Now that climate change, peak oil and human over-population
have finally been recognised by our authorities as becoming major looming
crises that we all must face, no mention is ever made in the UK of
the enormous resources consumed by pets which are needed now by the
poor in some parts of the world and will ultimately be required for
human survival. Should not we be making plans now?
Trevor Smith, Harwood
Kites over Britain
The excellent article on the red kite was very timely
for us. Only two days before our Countryman arrived, Rachel and I were
admiring our garden and birds when we saw a bird flying low directly
toward us about a half-mile away, being mobbed by rooks. The very slow
wingbeat indicated a large bird, which banked and turned hard left
only thirty yards from us, revealing the grey underwings and distinctive
V-tail of the red kite.
The local RSPB confirm that occasional single males have been seen
near here, perhaps seeking territory. This is significant, as our farm
is in Purbeck, halfway along the south coast. The nearest known nest
is in the Reading area, but obviously they are moving all over Britain.
Mark Helfer, Corfe Castle
Last bit of empire
Your editorial in June about the selling of land
for development exactly mirrors my situation. Adjoining my house I
have an acre of land, now surrounded by houses. So it’s worth
a fortune as building land. I am constantly offered large sums to sell
it. But not in my lifetime. At the moment it is a jumble of fallen
down stables and hay sheds which half a dozen of my grown up grandchildren
have promised to clear up for me. I am ninety-one now. I bred and broke
in hunters and hunted with the Old Berkeley for fifty years. My last
horse has gone, but my daughter still has two. At various times I have
had muntjac, badgers and foxes here. One fox had the temerity to bite
my hand when I lifted the pallet under which it was hiding.
I served the six war years 1939-45 in the Scots Greys.
Amongst other things they taught me to drink whisky. So now on a warm
evening I sit outside with my wee dram and listen to the late song
of the birds. It’s the last of my little empire and it’s
heaven on earth.
Jim Randall, Chesham
Farcical nature of TB debate
Having been on the government’s badger TB panel,
and involved some fifteen years, I am very saddened at the farcical
nature of the current debate, with ‘facts’ bandied about
both for and against a mass badger cull which are simply WRONG. Ministers
may have to reach a decision soon since the final report on the Krebs
culling trial is imminent, and will doubtless repeat the nonsense that
badgers perturbed by culls make cattle TB worse.
After some thirty-five years of pseudoscientific
debate, farmers, vets, and everyone else are still claiming that cattle
are not the infectious source of TB to other cattle and badgers. This
surreal view overlooks the most pivotal misunderstanding in the whole
saga, TB in both cattle and humans is a progressive respiratory lung
disease such that initial microscopic or ‘non-visible lesions’ (NVL)
give rise to many larger visible lesions (VL) with an increase in infectiousness.
The whole point of testing in both species is to catch cases before
they reach the more infectious VL stage.
Annual testing is so effective in cattle that it
reduces cattle to cattle spread so that nearly half of herd breakdowns
comprise only a single reactor. Putting herds under immediate movement
restriction stops export of latent TB carriers which would otherwise
go off and cause further herd breakdowns. The third result of intensive
cattle controls is that some two thirds of cases are caught so early
that it is not possible to confirm that they do in fact have TB.
It is important to realise that untraced movement
of such unconfirmed or undetected true TB cases is why TB persists
both here and in Ireland, and why both pre- and post-movement tests
are important to avoid new hotspots. The Badger Trust is misguided
in pushing so hard for IFN blood tests – yes, they do pick up
the early NVL cases, but miss later skin-test positive ones, which
is why EU rules are only for IFN as a backup test.
M Hancox, Stroud
Blossoms and beliefs
I’ve enjoyed Countryman for many years, but
of late reading A Woodman’s Notebook article is delightful. I
can identify with Tony Grace’s sentiments on the countryside,
being brought up in the country myself. On his item on the May blossom,
although remembering the customs and tales in Ireland where I lived,
the beliefs were similar. The blossom was banned from inside the house,
and trees were never disturbed even if one grew in the middle of a
pasture. I remember a story being told regarding a farmer who cut a
hawthorn tree and died shortly afterwards from a prod of the thorn
(probably tetanus) although it was in folklore thought to be from the
wrath of the fairies.
As children we nibbled the haws, but were told we would contract jaundice
from them and so avoided them. Just a few of my sentiments on the May
hawthorn. Thanks again for a lovely magazine.
Margaret Riddell, Coventry
Gathering swarm entertains pupils
I was very interested to read Curiouser & Curiouser
and the old rhyme reminding us of the importance of the hay harvest.
However, this slightly different rhyme is of equal importance to beekeepers.
It goes like this:
A swarm of bees in May/is worth a load of hay
A swarm of bees in June/is worth a silver spoon
A swarm of bees in July/isn’t worth a fly
In the 1960s I was head teacher at Leavening C P
School in the Yorkshire Wolds and I was a beekeeper. I had several
beehives behind the school and one May morning one of the hives swarmed.
The swarm went right to the top of a very tall tree a few yards away.
Bearing in mind the old rhyme I did not want to lose them. So at lunchtime
I extracted a frame of ‘brood’ (eggs and developing bees)
from another hive and I attached it to a log cane. Then with the aid
of a ladder I climbed up to the swarm and gently pushed the frame of
brood into the swarm. My idea was that the swarm with a new queen would
not leave eggs and developing bees willingly.
After school was over I prepared a new empty hive
with a sloping board to the entrance covered with a white cloth. The
reason for this is when the heat of the day is over, you collect the
swarm, shake it on to the white cloth and with your finger point the
first bees towards the entrance of the hive, the rest generally follow.
However, on this occasion, John, an old friend who did jobs around
the school, called to see if there was anything I wanted doing. “Yes,
John,” I said, “you could hold the bottom of the ladder
for me.” He was not happy, as he was frightened of bees and wasps.
I explained to him that bees only swarmed when they had eaten a great
deal of honey and had difficulty bending their abdomens to sting, and
also they were very docile at this time. Reluctantly he agreed to help
but insisted that he wore a hat with a brim. So, at about 7pm I climbed
the ladder with John holding on to the base.
I gently began to extract the frame of brood with
the swarm all over it, but I had not taken into account the weight
as it was the ‘prime swarm’, the best. When it was more
or less over John the cane bent, and the whole lot fell on him; with
a shriek he was off as fast as he could. I hurriedly descended and
with my bare hands began gathering up as many bees as I could and putting
them on the white cloth, they began to enter the hive; however, many
went back up the tree and made another swarm, so all I could do was
return the frame of brood to its rightful place and go and find John,
who had not been stung at all!
Next morning was lovely and sunny and at about morning
break there were clouds of bees flying around above the hives, so I
thought here is a good chance to do some natural history with the children.
My class of nine to eleven year olds stayed in the room and we all
looked out of the windows. I explained what had happened the evening
before, and I said to them, “Now if I was lucky when I was gathering
up the bees and directing them into the new hive, if the queen was
one of them, all those flying around will join the ones in the hive.
However, if I was unlucky and she is one of those flying around, then
all the ones I managed to get into the hive will come out and join
the queen and probably fly away.”
So, we all watched with bated breath and sure enough
the ones flying around suddenly swooped down and began entering the
hive. The children cheered and my stock rose a little that day.
John, however, always remained my friend, but could
never be persuaded to go anywhere near my bee- hives, but he did enjoy
the odd jar of honey!
Tony Hagyard, Westow
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which should be sent to:
Countryman, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton,
North Yorkshire BD23 3AG
Or email: editorial@thecountryman.co.uk
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right to edit letters for length and clarity. |
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