{"id":2051,"date":"2013-08-30T15:07:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T14:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2051"},"modified":"2013-08-30T15:07:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T14:07:48","slug":"predators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/predators","title":{"rendered":"Predators"},"content":{"rendered":"

The one group of birds that have gripped my imagination and my attention since I was very young are the birds of prey.\u00a0 Loved by many, hated by a few, persecuted by the ignorant, the stupid and the self-involved…<\/p>\n

Two raptors put in an appearance during our safari around Druridge Bay<\/a> and the Northumberland coast last week, and they’re both species that I’ll never tire of watching.\u00a0 As I drove our carload (Sharon and June, Francis and Julie, Jo and Kirsty) between Embleton and Warkworth, the bird that is the embodiment of power, musculature, speed and scythe-winged menace carved an arc across the sky alongside the road.\u00a0 Persecuted by gamekeepers, pigeon-fanciers and egg collectors, and once decimated by a population crash caused by pesticides, the sight of a Peregrine<\/strong> <\/em>beating it’s way majestically across the landscape is one that should stir the heart of everyone, birdwatcher and non-birdwatcher alike.<\/p>\n

The second raptor of the day was a species that, if such a thing is possible, manages to provoke even more outrage than the Peregrine.<\/strong><\/em> As we scanned the shadowy edges of a pool at dusk searching, unsuccessfully, for an Otter,<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong> I could see that a distant rock didn’t look quite right.\u00a0 With the increased magnification offered by our telescope the ‘rock’ resolved into the familiar shape of a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As well as gamekeepers, pigeon-fanciers and everyone else with a bee in their bonnets about Peregrines<\/strong><\/em>, the Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> has managed to make itself even less popular by hunting in urban and suburban gardens.\u00a0 Bird tables attract small birds, and small birds attract Sparrowhawks<\/strong><\/em>…now, while I can understand the indignation of anyone who puts food out for their local birds, only to see their feeding station become a fly-through fast food outlet for a Sparrowhawk, <\/strong><\/em>that’s the way that nature works; you have large numbers of very small creatures (e.g. insects<\/strong><\/em>) which are food for a smaller number of slightly larger creatures (e.g. Blue Tits<\/strong><\/em>), which in turn are food for a very small number of even larger birds (e.g. Sparrowhawks<\/strong><\/em>).\u00a0 A number of organisations, acting very disingenuously with hidden self-interest, would have people believe that there’s a Sparrowhawk<\/strong> <\/em>population of plague proportions and it’s busy decimating the tits, sparrows <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>finches<\/strong><\/em> in all of our gardens.\u00a0 Wouldn’t it be better if we could all appreciate the beauty, adaptation and precision of our birds of prey?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The one group of birds that have gripped my imagination and my attention since I was very young are the birds of prey.\u00a0 Loved by many, hated by a few, persecuted by the ignorant, the stupid and the self-involved… Two raptors put in an appearance during our safari around Druridge Bay and the Northumberland coast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141],"tags":[55,131],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-peregrine","tag-sparrowhawk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2052,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}