Who To Believe? (1 Viewer)

[Jane Turner]

OK so I have also worked my way through all of it. I would also like to express my thanks to Jane for the time and effort she has obviously put in, and I hope in the not to distant future to come back and read more of the papers. The EVIDENCE is overwhelming.

Thanks..

and congratulations to your son.

 

[StevieEvans]

In light of all the evidence........next time i'll only be using 1 trap instead of the 2....... lol

Masses of evidence have been brought to the attention of anyone with an open mind.........& Its certainly given me a slightly different perspective on the bigger picture.

I think Anthonys initial question has been answered more than adequately.

Stevie

 

[Jane Turner]

In light of all the evidence........next time i'll only be using 1 trap instead of the 2....... lol

Masses of evidence have been brought to the attention of anyone with an open mind.........& Its certainly given me a slightly different perspective on the bigger picture.

I think Anthonys initial question has been answered more than adequately.

Stevie

Hurrah! Good luck with the survey work.

 

[StevieEvans]

Off topic, but i'd just like to add...
If anyone knows people who control Magpies, try to get the message acroos not to shoot up Magpie nests.......as they may not necessarily be occupied by a black & white bird.
This is a great time of year to plot all last years Mag & Crow nests in your local Leo territories.....makes locating the one that the owls select a bit easier.
SE.

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Bump!

If anyone knows people who control Magpies, try to get the message acroos not to shoot up Magpie nests.......as they may not necessarily be occupied by a black & white bird.
This is a great time of year to plot all last years Mag & Crow nests in your local Leo territories.....makes locating the one that the owls select a bit easier.
SE.

This deserves repeating.. :clap: :clap:

 

[Jane Turner]

I read or saw somewhere.. .but have as yet failed to locate the reference... that the biggest cause of mortality in Long Eared Owls was gamekeepers shooting out their nests....

 

[Edward woodwood]

In light of all the evidence........next time i'll only be using 1 trap instead of the 2....... lol

Masses of evidence have been brought to the attention of anyone with an open mind.........& Its certainly given me a slightly different perspective on the bigger picture.

I think Anthonys initial question has been answered more than adequately.

Stevie

Top bloke Stevie

good luck with your owl work.... enjoy it

guess we may be nearing the end of this one...... great work Doc Turner...

go easy on the vino David (lunch ends at 1.40 at ours!)

Dmitris, although i lived for a while in ptolemaida I'm gonna stay working in Norfolk.... anyway i like the 'difficult' pupils more...

good luck to the boy Rayl, sounds like he's heading for good things.... B

 

[Jane Turner]

"that the biggest cause of mortality in Long Eared Owls was gamekeepers shooting out their nests...."

Well, I suppose that if a gamekeeper was shooting out of a nest, it would get a bit crowded for that poor little Long-eared Owl in there as well!!

Regards

Malky.
And I thought Stork nests were large!!

L.O.L.

Shooting out their nests implies standing on the ground and shooting upwards....

Shooting out of their nests would suggest standing in them.

 

[Anthony Morton]

Keith,
Anthony's original post#1, made at 11:18 on the 27th, was first answered by Mike Pennington, #9, at 15:30 on the same day.
His post regarding the supposedly contradictory paper (#29, made at 12:05 on the 28th) was first answered by Richard D., #35 at 14:28 on the same day i.e.5 DAYS AGO. I'm afraid Anthony has contributed considerably to the 'degeneration' of this thread by constantly maintaining the fiction that his questions are being ignored, despite numerous opportunities to admit this hasn't been the case.
James

James,

My apologies for only just replying but I have been 'off-air' for around 36 hours.

Did you really think that I would be satisfied with a posting (I won't call it an answer) which began "Another thread of deliberately obtuse cod-science. Having tried all other debates we're now left with the old magpie/songbird argument" In my opinion this was nothing more than a blatant attempt to intimidate members (me included) by hoping to stifle the thread and prevent any discussion taking place. If some members feel that this or any other subject is beneath their individual level of expertise or knowledge, then why don't they simply leave it alone and not bother to post?

You also suggest that Richard D answered my reference to the article in The Field relating to the interpretation of the scientific paper published by a number of eminent ecologists. In fact all he (quite rightly) suggested was that it would be interesting to read the original paper, which I wholeheartedly agree with. What I had hoped for was that at least one (possibly more?) of our scientifically-orientated members would either already have a copy of it in their files, or at least know where to lay their hands on it. This seemed to be a distinct possibility initially, as it quickly became clear from postings that some members were known personally by at least one of the paper's authors.

Sadly, however, this paper has still not been produced or even quoted from directly, as an indication of whether it agrees or disagrees with the article published in The Field. On the other hand, a mass of information supporting the accepted view has been produced, but nothing which indicates why just this one paper can rightly or wrongly be interpreted to give the opposite opinion. Therefore the only part of this paper that I've seen is the part quoted in the article, which reads; "Nest failure rate during incubation increased significantly where corvids were more abundant, suggesting a role for avian nest predators in determining spatial variation in reproductive output." By the way, the next line of the article states;This might seem like common sense to anyone connected with game management but for many years it has been vigorously denied by bird protectionists. Fair comment, wouldn't you say?

If you will also be good enough to run your 'squitometer' over the various postings on this thread again, I think you will find that the 'answers' you refer to are mostly to questions I haven't asked and therefore do nothing to satisfy my initial curiosity. Also take another look at your posting above and then ask yourself, in all conscience, if you have done anything other than try to score points by posting as you have. Naturally I have to accept that this thread has degenerated in parts but that's only because I flatly refuse to be fobbed-off in the way that's been tried. I do hope this will be remembered the next time I open a thread!

Anthony

 

[Edward woodwood]

it was interpreted that way in the field because they are not very bright/deliberately 'interpreted' it that way.

I'm afraid that's the truth.

you have been informed of this fact a few times i believe...

and as for trying to make a case (argument more like!) from ONE line in a paper when all other published evidence in the world ever is of a contradictory nature, then you can expect everything that came your way Mr M.

why are you not 'comfortable' with the reams of papers produced by Doc Turner?

a fine lesson in going to the original source if ever there was one

as a very clever man once said to me 'if you want to know what Marx, Darwin, Einstein or Freud said, then read what THEY wrote!'

 

[Anthony Morton]

I am pretty sure that some of the contributors to this thread were not as unaware of the background as they claimed, and I base my assessement on their contributions to other threads, not just this one. I do not agree that there were people on this thread who were not expressing an opinion and just trying to find the truth. They were being deliberatley provocative and they succeeded in provoking. I do not for one minute believe that the proponents of what might be described by them as 'neutral' comments really believe them to be neutral, nor are they as surprised as they may seem by the responses. I believe that they have a hidden agenda, as they tend to be people who do not contribute much to the core focus of the forum (birds) and give very little of their background away. But, as was said in another thread today, there are times when you can ignore certain comments, but other days when you cannot resist.

Mike,

And while you're at it, don't forget to look under the bed for the Bogey Man tonight!

Anthony

 

[RecoveringScot]

James,

snip

You also suggest that Richard D answered my reference to the article in The Field relating to the interpretation of the scientific paper published by a number of eminent ecologists. In fact all he (quite rightly) suggested was that it would be interesting to read the original paper, which I wholeheartedly agree with. What I had hoped for was that at least one (possibly more?) of our scientifically-orientated members would either already have a copy of it in their files, or at least know where to lay their hands on it. This seemed to be a distinct possibility initially, as it quickly became clear from postings that some members were known personally by at least one of the paper's authors.

Sadly, however, this paper has still not been produced or even quoted from directly, as an indication of whether it agrees or disagrees with the article published in The Field. On the other hand, a mass of information supporting the accepted view has been produced, but nothing which indicates why just this one paper can rightly or wrongly be interpreted to give the opposite opinion. Therefore the only part of this paper that I've seen is the part quoted in the article, which reads; "Nest failure rate during incubation increased significantly where corvids were more abundant, suggesting a role for avian nest predators in determining spatial variation in reproductive output."

Anthony

Abstract here:


http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2664.2000.00547.x/abs/

You can subscribe to the journal to read the full article.


Phil

 

[The Tom]

Hi Mike... I just re-read the ENTIRE Sparrowhawk thread and a few others. Yes of course you are correct! I could drag up all the quotes from them... but life is rather too short for that and I believe that most people reading this thread will have already formed their own views about motives.

Jane who started the Sparrowhawk thread ?

 

[The Tom]

Mike,

And while you're at it, don't forget to look under the bed for the Bogey Man tonight!

Anthony

Or even the bogey woman Anthony

 

[Anthony Morton]

Abstract here:


http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2664.2000.00547.x/abs/

You can subscribe to the journal to read the full article.


Phil

Hi Phil,

Many thanks for providing this link.

Regards,

Anthony

 

[Anthony Morton]

Or even the bogey woman Anthony

Ah yes, a case of 'one lump or two' I suppose!

 

[RecoveringScot]

Hi Phil,

Many thanks for providing this link.

Regards,

Anthony

My pleasure. If and when you have read it, perhaps you would be good enough to report back as to whether it supports the assertion of the 'Field', and whether you still consider things to be rather so ambiguous. I'd read it myself but I can't afford the subscription at the moment. There are abstracts from several other interesting papers on Thrush ecology there. In particular one which states (from memory) that the effects of predation are still unclear.

In addition I am unsure, from the abstract, of the precise meaning of 'spatial variation'.

Phil

 

[walwyn]

Well Tim, I for one would not contradict any of the above. The information was supplied by you and your allies in this debate. Unfortunately, the supplied quotes speak for themselves.

After all this are we really reduced to selective cut&paste quoting?


Personally I'd have thought that the gainsayers would have been able to do better than this.

 

[Anthony Morton]

My pleasure. If and when you have read it, perhaps you would be good enough to report back as to whether it supports the assertion of the 'Field', and whether you still consider things to be rather so ambiguous. I'd read it myself but I can't afford the subscription at the moment. There are abstracts from several other interesting papers on Thrush ecology there. In particular one which states (from memory) that the effects of predation are still unclear.

In addition I am unsure, from the abstract, of the precise meaning of 'spatial variation'.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I did take the opportunity to read the link you gave before extending my thanks to you for locating it. Without a scientific background, however, I was (and still am) unsure of the correct meaning of some of the terminology being used.

My post originally contained a comment to the effect that I felt the information given at item 5 in your link was of particular interest as it seems to confirm that the same criteria can be applied to other bird species and not just song thrushes and blackbirds. Like you, however, I was unsure whether my layman's interpretation was correct, so I 'chickened out' and deleted it before posting. With the benefit of hindsight, I suppose I might just as well have been hung for a sheep as a lamb!

As for the term 'spatial variation', my suggestion is that it may refer to the density of songbirds (in this case song thrushes and blackbirds) in relation to the number of magpies present in any given area. In other words, more magpies equals more songbird predation and less magpies equals less predation. If that is the case, then why didn't the paper's authors just say so?

Anthony

 

[RecoveringScot]

Hi Phil,

I did take the opportunity to read the link you gave before extending my thanks to you for locating it. Without a scientific background, however, I was (and still am) unsure of the correct meaning of some of the terminology being used.

My post originally contained a comment to the effect that I felt the information given at item 5 in your link was of particular interest as it seems to confirm that the same criteria can be applied to other bird species and not just song thrushes and blackbirds. Like you, however, I was unsure whether my layman's interpretation was correct, so I 'chickened out' and deleted it before posting. With the benefit of hindsight, I suppose I might just as well have been hung for a sheep as a lamb!

As for the term 'spatial variation', my suggestion is that it may refer to the density of songbirds (in this case song thrushes and blackbirds) in relation to the number of magpies present in any given area. In other words, more magpies equals more songbird predation and less magpies equals less predation. If that is the case, then why didn't the paper's authors just say so?

Anthony

Yes, I get your point. One of the problems with scientific papers, or, perhaps more an aspect than a problem, is that they are usually addressed to a particular, narrow research topic. This is why I think, without reading the full paper, it is unwise to generalise from the shorthand language of an abstract to a full theory unless one is quite sure what the topic was that was being addressed. An example, if 'small-scale spatial variation' occurs in nest failure, is it legitimate to extrapolate from this, perhaps local, unique circumstantial problem to a general theory about songbird nesting success. This is before one attacks the myriad of other factors that can affect songbird nesting success in differing types of habitat. I'm not sure how far the authors of this paper intended their conclusions to be used as a contribution to a grand theory of corvid/songbird balance. From the abstract it would appear not to have been uppermost in their minds. The previous study by Gooch (1991) addressed precisely the overall relationship between Magpies and songbirds, and found no evidence of any demonstrable correlation between numbers of Magpies and overall songbird levels. As far as I am concerned this is the study that remains to have its conclusions challenged by new data.

Phil