Save Our Songbirds

[Adam Cheeseman]

They're still at it folks!

A friend of mine went to the Hampton Court Flower Show this week and came across a stand for the Save Our Songbirds (Death to BoPs) lot.

This is what my friend told me.

"I spoke to someone on the stall on Thursday. Talk about an over-dramatised, theatrical hard-sell! Well, they want visitors to the stand to pay them £24/yr for membership to the Survival Trust, which apparently has charitable status. Her selling lines were that the RSPB is making money by promoting BoPs for their own ends and fogetting songbirds which have been extinct from London for 15yrs!!! Apparently we are now over-run by insects which used to be controlled by thrushes and the like.

I picked up a leaflet too - they claim to be after crows, rats/mice and squirrels, too. I showed it to my companion and explained the groups' ulterior motives, to which he said regarding the membership 'Like the birds on the front cover, they can sing for it'

I spoke to The Wildlife Trust's stall next to it, who informed me that the Survival group's stand has had complaints about them coming out of their stand and getting in the public's way."

Cheers,

Adam

[Tursiops2]

Perhaps we could set up "Save Our Sparrowhawks" to confuse the issue?

[Gill Catton]

do you think they are also creationists?

[vole-woman]

If they turn up at the Tatton Park flower show, I shall make an official complaint to the organisers.

[captaincarot]

the number of domestic cats increase massively , the number of songbirds decrease, go figure.
then people try to blame it on magpies, birds of prey, anything but the real cause

the4 strange woman down the road with 57 cats

[Shadowfax]

To save our songbirds we have to do 2 things;

1) ban slug pellets cos the poison gets into the foodchain and kills thrushes and blackbirds

2) cull Magpies which kill songbirds ( I have witnessed it first hand) and destroy songbird nests and their young and eat their eggs too. Magpies are too plentifull and too aggressive and have no natural enemies.

I wonder if the British people would tolerate such moves before it is too late for some songbird species? I doubt it.

[Gill Catton]

Its not cats or magpies - this is known and recognised by multiple conservation organisations and has been covered on many threads. Their influence is only localised, on a national scale they don't affect the overall population.

Saying things like 'magpies / cats have increased and songbird numbers have decreased - so they must be the cause' is exactly the same localised and essentially circumstantial evidence that SOS are using against birds of Prey. If predators are only taking numbers similar to those that would have die anyway in the winter months or through disease then populations don't necessarily decrease as a result.

Losses are though to be caused by habitat loss and increased use of pesticides which limits the available food.

[Jonners]

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

Apparently we are now over-run by insects which used to be controlled by thrushes and the like.

I would love to know where all this abundant insect life is.

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Jonners

I would love to know where all this abundant insect life is.

Some one recently commented that back in the good old days, circa 1970 , if you drove any distance in the summer you would have to stop from time to time and clean the windscreen and front lights of all the squished insects ... I'm old enough to just about remember that ....

[Jonners]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Some one recently commented that back in the good old days, circa 1970 , if you drove any distance in the summer you would have to stop from time to time and clean the windscreen and front lights of all the squished insects ... I'm old enough to just about remember that ....

Spot on SL, or rather, lots of spots on