Who To Believe? (5 Viewers)

[David Bryant]

Darwinian Evolution is VERY much under scrutiny at the mo! (viz the case of the Sticky Squid! A Darwinian impossibility!) You'd've been better using The Moon Landings as an example! LOL!

Can you point me at more info on this squid and why it is an impossibility?

Cheers

James :h?:[/QUOTE]
I cannot remember the exact species (though it was featured on a recent Attenborough documentary!) but the squid in question is a species of pygmy squid. It fastens itself to algae with an incredibly strong adhesive produced in its skin. Of course, it needs to be able to release itself instantly, should a predator appear: this it does using an INSTANT solvent, also produced in the skin. The challenge to Darwinists is this: How did either the glue or the solvent evolve simultaneously when neither have any useful function separately? Think about it! The glue on its own would lead to the squid being easy prey while the solvent on its own has no survival function!

 

[StevieEvans]

Anthony & friends
I think an important point (re Magpies) is that their population has 'skyrocketed' over the past 20 year, whereas many of the songbirds have gone the other way............therefore greater predation due to more predators & less prey.
I can think of 2 three figure Magpie roosts within 1.5 mile of the trap site, so the trap site hasnt the highest local densities neither !
Hence the need for the trapping, in a particular location where a specific need has arisen............. (& nothing to do with anything written down by anyone.)
SE.
PS. Constructive comments regarding this information are welcomed. Thank you.
No Point scoring, sniping, one-upman(woman)ship etc. Thank you.

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Stevie, see if you can get hold of a few (a series would be good) photographs of the area in question, taken over, say, the last forty years. What changes are visible?

Andy

 

[Rhion]

"The Red Kites in Wales are wild,"

Sorry Rhion, I must have been thinking about those Chickens, which are hand fed daily, and which fly around the valleys.
Regards
Malky

So any bird using a garden feeder is not wild?

 

[Jane Turner]

Anthony & friends
I think an important point (re Magpies) is that their population has 'skyrocketed' over the past 20 year, whereas many of the songbirds have gone the other way............therefore greater predation due to more predators & less prey.
I can think of 2 three figure Magpie roosts within 1.5 mile of the trap site, so the trap site hasnt the highest local densities neither !
Hence the need for the trapping, in a particular location where a specific need has arisen............. (& nothing to do with anything written down by anyone.)
SE.
PS. Constructive comments regarding this information are welcomed. Thank you.
No Point scoring, sniping, one-upman(woman)ship etc. Thank you.

Stevie

I think you answered your own question, "I can think of 2 three figure Magpie roosts within 1.5 mile of the trap site" Your efforts are not effecting Magpie numbers at all.

I know of a couple of sites where there has been Magpie trapping and the result has made no impact whatsoever to the population of Magpies. At one of these, ringing results at a neighbouring site revealed instead an incredibly high number of immigrant Magpies. The same argument for the futility of doing it from the songbird population, as measured by breeding pairs each spring also applies here. Magpies have a naturally high mortality rate, there is huge competion for good breeding sites and food. By taking out a few Magpies you just increase the chances of survival of those birds which would otherwise lose out and you are left with a nil sum.

The increase in Magpie populations and some songbirds and the decrease in other species are attributable to changes in faming practise, climate change and habitat destruction. Killing Magpies may make you feel that you are doing something useful, but I believe and wish you did something else more effective and constructive with your undoubted enthusiasm.

 

[Anthony Morton]

....plus there is plenty of evidence to say that locally the temporary increase in survival rate is quickly counter-balanced by increased competition for food etc.. so that any gains are cancelled out by the next breeding season.

Jane,

That doesn't seem to be the case in the example outlined by StevieEvans, where the immediate increase in songbird numbers the year the Larsen traps were employed (2003) was exceeded in 2004. I accept that this wasn't conducted as a scientific experiment (I don't believe it was ever intended to be that) but it has already 'outlived' the results your posting predicts.

In my view it will be useful to know how the 2005 (and possibly even subsequent breeding seasons) compare with the first two years' results. If nothing else, it should give a feel for the usefulness or otherwise of this form of predator control.

Anthony

 

[Jane Turner]

I was talking generally... there may always be local fluctuations.. but how to show that these were not due to some other factor.. like a flush of aphids or a mild autumn etc... will be impossible.

 

[Nightranger]

Hence the need for the trapping, in a particular location where a specific need has arisen............. (& nothing to do with anything written down by anyone.)
.

Hi Stevie,

To add to what Jane has said, there is another consideration - what about places where there are few or no magpies? Here around The Lodge, magpies are relatively rare but outside The Lodge, the songbird population is hardly extensive. I am sure most people can point to other examples that have no magpies and no fantastic populations of songbirds. Or put another way, you will not find magpies on the top of a mountain. It is now an established concept that prey influences predator populations and not the other way around. For example, if no magpies were in an area and there were X number of songbirds. Y number of magpies arrived (or at least the population built up to Y) and the songbird population became X/2 (any figure will do BTW) then we should expect the magpie population to fall to Y/2. This simply does not happen and it can easily be songbirds = X/2, magpies Y+2. It just so happens that the improving magpie fortunes due to adaptive behaviour towards exploiting urban opportunities has coincided with the biggest habitat changes ever seen in the UK over a 25 year period. It is not just agriculture BTW, there are even urban trends that are not helping despite the popularity of garden feeding and nest boxes.

Ian

 

[Edward woodwood]

Stevie

The increase in Magpie populations and some songbirds and the decrease in other species are attributable to changes in faming practise, climate change and habitat destruction.

about the long, short and tall of it for anyone who wants a soundbite description of the issues...

from site to site different factors will weigh in differently and in some areas other factors will be influential too.

 

[Nightranger]

That doesn't seem to be the case in the example outlined by StevieEvans, where the immediate increase in songbird numbers the year the Larsen traps were employed (2003) was exceeded in 2004. I accept that this wasn't conducted as a scientific experiment (I don't believe it was ever intended to be that) but it has already 'outlived' the results your posting predicts.

In my view it will be useful to know how the 2005 (and possibly even subsequent breeding seasons) compare with the first two years' results. If nothing else, it should give a feel for the usefulness or otherwise of this form of predator control.

Anthony

Hi Anthony,

Good point, except there is a reason for this in that the two years you mention saw good weather through the breeding season and two of the mildest winters on record. As you know, the winter of 1963 killed a lot of smaller (and not so small) birds and a late snowfall in 1981 was devastating to early nesting upland birds such as wheatear. Be honest, we have not had a winter like that for around a decade but the last few years have been good for wildlife in summer followed by milder winters. I agree with your final sentiment but we need to consider the weather in the results as I am sure you will agree.

Ian

 

[Richard D]

Would it matter to you, if your grannie had been eaten by a cannibal when she was 10 years old??


Regards

Malky

Well logically she couldn't be my grandmother. If someone my grandfather may have considered marrying/breeding with died then he would be most likely to marry/breed with someone else. As the human population is capable of creating their own habitat and farming we don't have the same expansion controls as birds do so any analogy to bird population dynamics is of course spurious.

I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make?

Regards Richard

 

[Anthony Morton]

Hi Anthony,

I am not sure what you are asking here because I did not comment on the paper you quoted, I mentioned the other paper just out of interest.

Hi Ian,

I think you'll find that there aren't two separate papers and that the scientific paper referred to in the article I quoted from is indeed the one prepared by the BTO/UEA. At face value, this does seem to contradict the accepted science on magpie predation and was prepared by a number of highly respected individuals in the field of ornithology.

Anthony

 

[Anthony Morton]

I was talking generally... there may always be local fluctuations.. but how to show that these were not due to some other factor.. like a flush of aphids or a mild autumn etc... will be impossible.

Jane,

Are you suggesting that songbird populations can never become an exact science and that it's more a case of 'what you see is what you get'?

Anthony

 

[Jane Turner]

Jane,

Are you suggesting that songbird populations can never become an exact science and that it's more a case of 'what you see is what you get'?

Anthony

Not at all.. I'm suggesting that you need to look at a wide enough scale, both in area and temporally to make sensible conclusions.

 

[Edward woodwood]

well said Jane

 

[Richard D]

Hi Ian,

I think you'll find that there aren't two separate papers and that the scientific paper referred to in the article I quoted from is indeed the one prepared by the BTO/UEA. At face value, this does seem to contradict the accepted science on magpie predation and was prepared by a number of highly respected individuals in the field of ornithology.

Anthony

Anthony - the quotes that the shooting magazine use do not in anyway contradict accepted science on the effects of predation on the songbird population. No one denies that magpies predate nests, the question is whether predation effects overall population rates, which the selective quotes do not examine. If you look at studies of songthrush population decine you'll see that it's the survival of first winter birds that appears to be the problem - not breeding success.

Richard

 

[Edward woodwood]

Hi Ian,

I think you'll find that there aren't two separate papers and that the scientific paper referred to in the article I quoted from is indeed the one prepared by the BTO/UEA. At face value, this does seem to contradict the accepted science on magpie predation and was prepared by a number of highly respected individuals in the field of ornithology.

Anthony

It is only ONE situation in ONE area where that is obviously the case - it is NOT the case in may many other areas that have been studied

 

[Anthony Morton]

Hi Anthony,

Good point, except there is a reason for this in that the two years you mention saw good weather through the breeding season and two of the mildest winters on record. As you know, the winter of 1963 killed a lot of smaller (and not so small) birds and a late snowfall in 1981 was devastating to early nesting upland birds such as wheatear. Be honest, we have not had a winter like that for around a decade but the last few years have been good for wildlife in summer followed by milder winters. I agree with your final sentiment but we need to consider the weather in the results as I am sure you will agree.

Ian

Hi Ian,

Exactly that! There are always going to be a host of variables which could affect the outcome of the breeding season, with the weather being just one of them. I agree totally with your reference to mild winters but if you think 1963 was bad (which it was) you should have seen the mess we got into in 1947 - there were brass monkeys looking for brazing equipment everywhere you went!

Seriously though, the recent spate of mild winters in the UK leads to another question. Given this situation, coupled with the assumed benefit this should bring to the ability of birds to breed successfully, why hasn't there been a corresponding increase in all songbird numbers as opposed to the decrease reported for many species? Doesn't this mean that there must be other factors affecting things - including predation?

Anthony

 

[Richard D]

Seriously though, the recent spate of mild winters in the UK leads to another question. Given this situation, coupled with the assumed benefit this should bring to the ability of birds to breed successfully, why hasn't there been a corresponding increase in all songbird numbers as, as opposed to the decrease reported for many species? Doesn't this mean that there must be other factors affecting things - including predation?

Anthony

It means there must be other factors, but no serious study that I've seen has suggested predation as a cause for population decline. Habitat loss and changes in farming practice seem to be the major factors. These are something that can be remedied with the political will.

Richard

 

[Anthony Morton]

Anthony - the quotes that the shooting magazine use do not in anyway contradict accepted science on the effects of predation on the songbird population. No one denies that magpies predate nests, the question is whether predation effects overall population rates, which the selective quotes do not examine. If you look at studies of songthrush population decine you'll see that it's the survival of first winter birds that appears to be the problem - not breeding success.

Richard

Richard,

And as Ian rightly pointed out, we've had a succession of mild winters for at least ten years, so we can't just blame the weather for declining numbers.

Anthony