To many people the RSPB is the embodiment of bird protection in the UK. However, some severe criticism has been thrown their way due to actions from their bumbling Vice President, Chris Packham.
Some year ago Mr Packham was on his very high horse shouting about some other group that had apparently suggested control measure to protect our songbirds.
Above: a young blackbird - a favourite target of magpies
Chris Packham has been alleged to have been very careful with his words, yet many folk believe that he still misleads us when he says magpies do not cause population declines of other birds.
Speaking on a personal level, our garden itself loses many songbird chicks each year to marauding magpies. The poor old blackbirds are targeted each spring by these crafty predators. Many songbird chicks are dragged out of their nests and dropped, to die soon on the ground.
It’s early May now and already we have seen magpies in our garden fly away from songbird nests with five chicks. If one multiplies this into all the UK gardens we can see that Mr Packham is not only mistaken but is in fact no friend to our songbirds.
Above: a pair of nest-raiding magpies in action
Others strongly disagree with Mr Packham's anti-songbird propaganda...
“Magpies predate bird nests, they are much smaller than crows and are adept at moving through dense hedgerows where many farmland species nest. It has been shown that they can suppress the productivity of breeding songbirds in those hedgerows in a modern farmland system. If breeding success is a factor that limits population size for a particular bird species in a given area, and sometimes it will be, then magpies can cause that population to decline.”
Dr Rufus Sage. Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
https://www.gwct.org.uk/blogs/news/2019/june/%E2%80%98wildlife-expert%E2%80%99-sends-out-misleading-message-on-predation-our-letter-to-bbc-wildlife/
Over the last decade or so there appears to have been a large increase with the magpie population in my area. This seems to have ensured that other species have dwindled due to hedgerow predation. I have been told the same thing by concerned friends in other places too.
Chris Packham - heading the quest for UK's songbird destruction?
In April 2009 this was what Packham said.
“It's true that some magpies prey on the nests of smaller birds during the breeding season, but this is for perhaps three or four months of the year and only affects young birds that are easily replaced. The magpies never kill the more valuable breeding adults (unlike cats, which do so 365 days a year).”
So, according to this RSPB leading light it's fine and dandy that the UK songbird population is devastated by magpies for up to “four months of the year”?
In Packham's restricted worldview there is no problem because it’s just the 'young' of songbirds and not adults that are killed by magpies? In his amazing ignorance he also says that young birds are "easily replaced". Try telling this to a pair of thrushes that have been raided repeatedly by magpies every time their chicks hatch out. Is this highly vocal man man for real?
Clearly, this is befuddled and ecologically dangerous thinking! Has Mr Packham considered that if the destruction of our songbird nestlings continues then there will eventually be no adults left. Therefore, his glittering role as RSPB vice president with become utterly untenable.
Regardless of his caring spin while grinning profusely on the TV I believe, like many others who have been unofficial naturalists for decades, that this confused man is laying the foundation for the destruction of our wonderful songbird species that hedge-hopping magpies see as quick lunches.
Packham really shows his feeble grasp of the situation when he states...
“Despite their brash appearance, they are a native species, but an in-your-face one, with a wealth of folklore to subconsciously seed such hateful reactions. Many people still tip their hats to a lonesome specimen and say, "Hello Mr Magpie, how is your wife today?", in a bid to appease the harbinger of misfortune”.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/apr/20/magpies-protect-cull-songbird-survival
How wrong can anyone be? The magpie’s reputation as the “harbinger of misfortune” is intimately (and accurately) linked to thousands of years of native country lore and observation of the predatory habits of this species.
Interestingly, Mr Packham once used to stuff wild birds for profit
He found that selling his finished work supplemented his pocket money. He said: “I used to get about £30 for an owl, £20 for magpies and jays and once received £40 for a buzzard in flight.”
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/549945/TV-wildlife-presenter-Chris-Packham-used-stuff-animals
Mr Packham has more recently been criticised on Twitter for stopping RSPB conservation culling to protect red listed/endangered species.
Ultimately, the problem is a matter of human intervention. Ideally, mankind leaves nature to its own devices and does nothing anywhere for any species. That results in a natural balance being restored.
Sadly that is now not possible. We have adversely affected the natural ecosystem everywhere. We have polluted waterways, destroyed woodlands, poured concrete over wild places and brought highly successful predators, such as domestic cats, into areas where they have wrought havoc with wildlife populations.
The latter point is even something that Mr Packham appears to agree with. He’s admittedly been adamant that charities should shout louder about conservation issues and has urged both the RSPB and RSPCA to speak out about the havoc wreaked by cats on garden birds. “I have nothing against cats; it is the cat-owners,” he added.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/09/chris-packham-interview-springwatch
Undoubtedly, Mr Packham's valid stab at irresponsible cat owners that allow their beloved pets to roam free and destroy our native wildlife will not have impressed the RSPB 's propaganda department. This group has apparently gone to great lengths not up upset the 'Fur Baby Brigade'as many feline devotees will be paying RSPB members.
Nevertheless, old Chris oddly cannot apply the same logic to the growing magpie menace that is so well know to countless gardeners across the UK.
Like it or not, we have made ourselves custodians of the songbird population
That means that we cannot just act like magpie-loving Chris Packham and pretend that everything is fine and dandy in the hedgerows. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and say - Well it's just nature init".
Anyone who has ever witnessed a group of raiding magpies ripping a screaming blackbird chick to pieces while its frantic parents unsuccessfully battled to save it will understand. Packham must stop making absurd excuses and act properly, like an adult, to protect our songbirds. Some species that he is dismissing are endangered and on the Red List.
Thanks to his ignoble, ill-considered emotionally - based efforts to promote predatory magpie numbers the lovely dawn chorus will become quieter each season.
Above: UK songbirds like this young thrush should be receiving RSPB support, yet thanks to their pro-Magpie bias this species is set to slip even further into decline.
If it does not change its foolish ways the RSPB will ultimately be seen as a farcical outfit not fit for purpose. That would be a real shame as it does do some good work at times.
I just am one person who's spent a lifetime helping to promote our wonderful UK songbirds. I shall however not be supporting this group under its currently counterproductive, anti-songbird, agenda.
More RSPB criticism, why have donors lost confidence in the RSPB?
https://order-order.com/2018/10/18/big-losses-clip-rspbs-wings/
See also...
https://pat-regan.blogspot.com/2019/07/rspb-marshside-nels-hide-finally-closed.html
https://pat-regan.blogspot.com/2020/03/mersey-tidal-power-but-at-what-cost-to.html
https://pat-regan.blogspot.com/2019/06/woodvale-jackdaw-roof-rescue.html
https://pat-regan.blogspot.com/2016/07/southport-bird-life.html
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