Brookvale Park.
A trip to Witton Lakes and the adjacent Brookvale Park today, which was wasn't good for spotting song birds being as it was very windy, overcast and damp, but on the flip side it was great for watching the waterfowl. Birds spotted at Witton Lakes were, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Pied Wagtail, Ruddy Duck, Shoveler, Teal, Wigeon, Gadwall, Pochard, Silver Appleyard, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Mute Swan and Cormorant. Birds seen on the short trip to Brookvale Park were, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Pied Wagtail, Great Crested Grebe, Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Grey Heron and Cormorant. Today was the first time I'd ever seen Ruddy Duck, so I did a little research and there are less than 120 of them in the country due to a Government led cull which began in 2005, apparently it costs the British taxpayer, £915 for every bird killed, so that's money well spent then, the RSPB also backs this cull as it does with the Corvids (Carrion Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws etc.) Parakeets, Canada Geese, Cormorants, Badgers and Deers etc, which for all the good they do, is why I won't join their organisation. There were three Silver Appleyard's (two male and one female) It is a Mallard/Domestic Duck hybrid developed in the 1940s by the famous duck breeder Reginald Appleyard who was aiming to produce a prolific egg layer and ideal table bird and these three were huge. Also, I don't know whether it's been a good year for breeding Pied Wagtails or just a coincidence, but I see them everywhere I go, including Birmingham city centre, unless the numbers have peaked due to the losses they'll suffer over the winter.
Hi Vinnyman.
ReplyDeleteI live near to Brookvale Park and I''ve noticed a total crash in the cormorant population from 12 down to zero in just three weeks. Someone said the keepers were deliberately 'dissuading' the birds from staying (whatever that means). I'm really disappointed as I loved to see them. They catch fish to live, not for sport.
Cormorants do actually move around to wherever there are fish, but to have none at all is worrying, councils do cull birds such as Canada Geese, Gulls etc, even Ruddy Duck at Witton Lakes, so they may be 'dissuading' them or even culling them unfortunately. Personally I don't know why we have to kill any animal, there is a natural order to things and we should leave it that way, like you said with Cormorants 'they catch fish to live, not for sport', it's ironic that we've driven them inland in the first place by reducing their natural food source by overfishing the ocean and then persecute them for what they do naturally.
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