So Boris is back and whatever the politics it could spell disaster for London's birds. He is in a very strong position, he is the only Tory to win anything recently and this gives him the mandate to push for his various schemes, the chief one amongst them being the airport in the Thames. He has Cameron by the goolies and will pile on the pressure. I am sure most birders will aware of what an airport in Thames will do for birds and other wildlife The Thames is an internationally important site for Wildfowl and Waders. I hope the RSPB are going to pipe up over this, they have been worryingly quiet of late. Also Boris wants to relax the planning laws in London making developments easier and swifter. I fear many of our biodiverse brownfield sites will be at risk, many which reside along the Thames.
I thought we were living in times of austerity but the government has made £200,000 available to eradicate the 100 Ruddy Ducks left in the UK. At £2000 per duck what are they killing them with, unless they are going to disturb them so they fly then shoot them down with surface to air missiles.
Saturdays visit to EIDB was always going to be an 'after the Lord Mayor's show' type of event after John Archer's impressive haul on Friday. He recorded 4 unusual species (Yellow Wagtail, House Sparrow, Sedge Warbler and Garden Warbler) the first Sand Martin of the year plus good numbers of commoner migrants. There was no sign of the unusual species but I did record my first Sand Martins, 6 flying north and 2 hanging around the basin, hopefully to breed. Also I recorded the first Swifts at EIDB this year with a massive count of 6 (this is a big count at EIDB) and my first Lesser Whitethroat. So it was decent, but still no Chiffchaff. But the main talking point was the weather, it felt like January and birds were very reluctant to move or sing and hanging around staring at bushes soon became toe numbing.
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