Notes from the North 5 2024

It is May. The blossom is showering down in drifts along the pavements and the air is thick with the twitter of busy birds finding mates and building nests, so Birds their beauty and their wellbeing - our wellbeing too - are the subject of this post. 

Scotland apparently has 535 different kinds of bird. If we set aside the views of the owners of grouse moors who often don’t live in Scotland anyway, most of us probably agree that having laws to protect and increase our bird populations is a good thing. And fortunately, notwithstanding the murderous efforts of that gun-wielding minority, Scotland still has more species of large raptors than anywhere else in the UK – 18 in all. Happily there are also dozens of voluntary organisations up and down the country dedicated to monitoring and protecting the country’s birds and their nesting sites. 

Of all the raptors the golden eagle (aquila chrysaetos) is probably Scotland’s best known. Another less often seen but widely distributed across central and southern Scotland is the goshawk (accipter gentilis). 

goshawk

Like the sparrowhawk (accipiter nisus), the goshawk’s broad wings enable it to fly at immense speeds through trees. Speed is what defines the peregrine falcon too (falco peregrinus) – no other bird moves as fast as the peregrine diving for the kill. 

peregrine falcon

They like to nest on cliffs and have recently started taking up residence on high buildings and towers in urban areas. 

A pair has been living in the Gilbert Scott Tower at Glasgow University for the past two decades and this year produced four eggs all of which have hatched into healthy chicks. This is very bad news for Glaswegian pigeons (pigeon pie is a peregrine favourite) but it’s just what the humans who have been keeping an eye on the nest were hoping for. A camera has been installed – of course. These days birds of all kinds can expect to have rings round their legs and cameras poking into their homes, all in the name of protection. 

There is no doubt that protection is needed as much as ever. The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill was finally passed by the Scottish Parliament this spring after years of debate and procrastination (Muirburn is the controlled burning of vegetation to help the growth of grass liked by grouse). The Bill was passed by 85 – 30. All the Conservatives voted against it. Under the new legislation grouse moors must be licensed and can lose their right to hold shoots if found to be in breach. It won’t stop all the deaths of raptors but it should reduce the numbers killed by poisoning, trapping, shooting and nest destruction – the commonest methods used. It gives other kinds of wildlife a better chance too, since it also outlaws the use of snares and glue traps. 

Turning to some of Scotland’s other iconic birds, there’s lots that could be said about the capercaillie (tetro urogallus), about how they first became extinct in Scotland in 1785, when the last pair were shot for a banquet at Balmoral and how as a result of that act of royal barbarism the few pairs we have today are all descended from Scandinavian stock. 

capercaillie

And a lot more could be said about the world’s largest colony of gannets (morus bassanus) living out on the Bass Rock off the coast of North Berwick and how they suffered a catastrophic population collapse in 2022 due to bird flu but are gradually increasing in numbers again. 

But I am going to concentrate on the osprey (pandion haliaetus) instead, partly because the osprey is still a rarer sight in Scotland than the golden eagle and partly because yet again a male osprey was found dead last week near the Loch of the Lowes nature reserve in Perthshire where a pair has successfully raised chicks in the past. Ospreys mate for life but now the female has no partner to help her incubate the three eggs she has laid.

osprey

Ciril Ostroznik ringing osprey chicks in the nest, 2019

There are various places besides the Loch of the Lowes where you can observe ospreys. Quite a few of them are to be found in the south west of Scotland thanks to the efforts of a man named Ciril Ostroznik. Ostroznik was an expert on raptors but what he was particularly keen on was protecting and increasing Scotland’s osprey population. There was no one to match him when it came to looking after those birds. He climbed to the top of trees and built nests for them – not, as is more usual, platforms for the birds to build nests on but whole nests made of branches, twigs, lichen and moss which they took over and added to. Since ospreys not only mate for life but also return to the same nest every year it doesn’t take long before a nest can reach monumental proportions, a messy but surprisingly stable pile of material up to 200 cms in depth. 

Out of all the nests he built in both Scotland and Ireland, the best known is the one now called appropriately enough ‘Ciril’s Nest’, at Threave Castle.

Were he alive today Ostroznik would doubtless be delighted to hear that the ospreys have recently flown back to Threave from Senegal and are making a start on this year’s breeding. 

It seems that the picture of the welfare of our birds in Scotland is as mixed as the picture of the wellbeing of other wild animals and insects or the health of our forests, rivers and seas. Our spirits lift in the warm airs of May and our mood brightens when we see the blossom on the branch. Then the climate scientists send out another warning, their bleakest yet. 

What do we do? 

Parliament 

Then in the writer’s wood 

every bird with a name in the world 

crowded the leafless trees, 

took its turn to whistle or croak. 

An owl grieved in an oak. 

A magpie mocked. A rook 

cursed from a sycamore. 

The cormorant spoke: 

                                    Stinking seas 

below ill winds. Nothing swims. 

A vast plastic soup, thousand miles 

wide as long, of petroleum crap. 

… A woodpecker heckled. 

A vulture picked at its own breast. 

Thrice from the cockerel, as ever. 

The macaw squawked: 

                                       Nouns I know – 

Rain. Forest. Fire. Ash. 

Chainsaw. Cattle, Cocaine. Cash. 

Squatters, Ranchers. Loggers. Looters. 

Barons. Shooters… 

Carol Ann Duffy 

Nature 

Picador 2023