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Poor old Gilbert is getting restless. Despite the fact that there is more interest in wildlife than ever before, it seems that most of the so-called conservation organisations are losing interest in species. Instead they prefer to babble on about landscape scale conservation and ecosystem services (whatever they are). Could this be because most of their staff don't have any knowledge about species if they don't have four legs?
This is my attempt to encourage an interest in good old-fashioned natural history.

Thursday, 10 May 2012

The Aaaahhh Factor

Dan and I were joined by two of the eco-chicks for some Tawny Owl ringing this evening. We had two nests to visit. The first was in an old apple tree in Sweet Chestnut coppice. This contained one nestling and an infertile egg. Unfortunately, the hole was too deep to reach the chick but John's ingenuity meant that it was persuaded to sit in an over-sized spoon so that it could be extracted from the hole!



Nice nails Jess!


The second nest was in an incredibly decrepit dead pine. Each year I think the tree won't last till the following spring but it's still there. This nest also contained a single chick but then we noticed a dead chick on the ground by the tree. This was older than the live one and had presumably got a bit adventurous and fallen out of the hole. The presence of the dead rodents next to the chick shows that the parents tried to keep feeding it.

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