21/12/2009

No sign of the Firecrests today at the golf course where I was shocked to find further habitat destruction following the well publicised clearance that took place in February and won the front page of a local newspaper.

I was even more shocked to have found out that the golf course is planning to clear most of the undergrowth along a substantial length of the wooded footpath favoured by the Firecrests. I think that this is a very silly and pointless thing to do, causing disturbance to a rare bird in an area which is not important to the golf course, at the edge of the site. There is absolutely no need for this destruction, even if the Firecrests could find suitable habitat nearby (there is no habitat as good as the wooded footpath nearby anyway, and there is NO QUESTION that it is causing unnecessary disturbance to all wildlife let alone the scarce and sensitive Firecrests) and I am doing everything in my ability to stop it happening.

It was also enlightening to find that checks are NOT done for every piece of management that the golf course plans, but instead the 'conservation' organisations have an agreement which lets the golf club do such things without consultation or the surveying of an area. This questions one of the manager's statements in February that all appropriate checks had been made and they were doing nothing wrong, if I remember correctly.

The most that I have got out of the golf club regarding why they are doing it, other than because they can, is that golfers lose their balls in the undergrowth and 'it's a golf course'. Maybe bad golfers deserve to have trouble finding their balls, surely a scarce wintering bird on the red list is more important (regardless of whether it is in the breeding season or not).

All very upsetting and stressful. The most understanding person I have talked to today about the issue was the head guy of the workforce which were doing the felling! He said that all of the work would be postponed until Natural England and the Banstead Commons Conservators give them the all clear on any sensitive wildlife. I contacted the main man of the Banstead Commons Conservators on the issue to be greeted with complete lack of knowledge of what was going on (shows how organised they are), and he said that all he would agree to do is to send one of his guys down there tomorrow morning to see what was going on. I asked if I could join him (not completely trusting them) and I was answered, rather grumpily, with something along the lines with 'You most certainly can not). I found his attitude unpleasant, as I did with one of the main men at the golf club who said something along the lines of 'We have permission, so we can do whatever we like' and 'there's gonna be more clearance', all said in a pretty smug manner with a little smurk on his face.

Not a good situation for the Firecrests, especially with all this snow and ice. This combination of harsh weather and habitat destruction without much aid from conservation bodies is not conducive to the survival of a tiny, scarce and sensitive passerine bird.

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THE BIRD SIGHTINGS AT BANSTEAD DOWNS TODAY

Sorry for the inaccurate counts, I was busy thinking about the situation at the golf course.

Suffice to say, there was no sign of any Firecrests along the wooded footpath today.

2 male BLACKCAPS were seen together at the bike track which is just west of the railway and at least 3 BULLFINCHES were present there also. I only managed to sex one, a female, not sure what sex the others were.

A SPARROWHAWK was seen at the golf course just east of the A217 and what was probably the same individual was seen jostling in the air with a CARRION CROW in the distance over the golf course, from the main site between the A217 and Sutton Lane.

3 FIELDFARES present at the core site between the railway and Sutton Lane also good numbers of REDWINGS, perhaps 30 or 40 like yesterday, but hard to estimate.

Fieldfare

Not quite as many BLACKBIRDS as the other day but there were a few around, I really didn't count them but I would guess around 10 or so.

There were probably about 5 ROBINS. There was a handful of TITS including GREAT, LONG-TAILED and BLUE.

Up to 5 MAGPIES were present with 10 or 20 WOODPIGEONS and 5 to 10 or so CARRION CROWS.