BY BERT BURNETT

I read the Times article below with an equal mix of amusement and incredulity.

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Now no doubt it will be farming practices which get the blame rather than thieving BBC presenters.

When things start to disappear that’s the easy way out.

Of course, we all know that there is something more obvious going on.

In the 1960’s to 1980’s large raptors like buzzards, red kites and even peregrines were in short supply, birds like goshawks were almost unheard of and sparrow hawks were a rare sight.

But now all these birds can be seen on almost a daily basis in ever increasing numbers.

The diminutive kestrel, with no real competition, was a common sight patrolling the edges of roads and highways as they searched for small prey and roadkill but they are now rarely seen. They have been replaced by kites and buzzards, if not searching the roadside banks then sitting around them on fence posts and telegraph poles.

The reason they are there is, like the kestrel of old, they are feeding on the voles and small birds or the roadkill.

It’s obvious by these larger raptors’ presence that the kestrels are not absent through lack of a feeding opportunity but dare I suggest – not wishing to baffle any armchair scientists or upset any raptor ‘persecution’ propagandists – they are absent because they have been ousted and on many occasions may have been the prey of some of these larger and more aggressive raptors.

You will note that there is no indication from Nature Scotland that the increase in competing raptors can be having any affect but instead we get the recurrent chestnut that it’s possibly climate change – a factor that, going by their increases, is not affecting any other raptor in the UK.

Funny that !!?

If it’s not the elephant in the room, it’s the kestrel at the end of baffled scientists’ noses.

Bert Burnett is a retired gamekeeper of more than fifty years experience.