Birds and Welsh Uplands

Hen Harrier

Something (though not the only thing) that was brought home to me when I gave evidence at the Hendy windfarm enquiry was how the Environmental Assessment system is constructed upon outdated conservation thinking. So those arguing in favour of a particular windfarm development can say that it will be detrimental to only an insignificant proportion of the total number of a given species in Wales. They don’t have to consider an assessment of the accumulated impact of all the proposed windfarms in Wales on that species. 

And obviously they should. You could say that’s merely common-sense. Like I say, it’s also called for by modern conservation understandings… Come to think of it, that figures. Because I’m presently trying to pen a book about how common-sense and the latest conservation understandings should become friends again. 

One of these understandings throws light on why many bird species in Britain have – after a period of gradual decline – now gone into accelerated decline or extinction. What explains this? 

The answer is that birds – like us – live in populations. Individuals in a population assist one another. 

So it’s not just a question of measuring breeding success and adult survival of a species. If they get beneath a certain size of population, they’re as good as done for, even though you may be observing pairs still breeding. They have no resilience that collectivity provides against the unexpected, irregular and chaotic hazards that all life-forms are subject to: a generalist predator that has learned it can successfully hunt a certain ground-nesting bird; a harsh winter; problems in migration or on wintering grounds.

One particular incident above all others brought this home to me. I’d been working in curlew conservation on the uplands of Radnorshire and north Brecknock for a little while. I’m a very low-intervention conservationists, preferring to work with farmers on habitat management rather than trying to track down exactly where my curlews are nesting. My own view is that the only people who needs to know that are Mr and Mrs Curlew. But once I came across a pair of curlew as I was edging slowly in my old Subaru along a track on the moor towards a vantage point from which in the previous year I’d watched curlew in nearby fields. By chance at that moment my truck was surrounded by a group of cattle. So the curlew – despite being only forty yards or so away – remained unalarmed. I quickly flicked off the engine, settled down to take advantage of the situation… 

Suddenly one of the curlews flared its wings up at a sheep. This could surely only mean one thing: there was a nest nearby. Soon afterwards the same bird did indeed settle down in the undergrowth, more or less disappearing from sight, submarine-like.

This was exciting and fortuitous. This pair of Curlew was used to seeing farm vehicles on this track. Taking advantage of dips and rises, I could drive to a point on the moor where it was possible to watch through binoculars.  

Some days later I watched the site again. And again a sheep approached the nest as the male was sitting, with the female having gone off a short way to feed. The male rose off the nest and flared its wings at the sheep, but this time failed to re-route it. It tried another tack, walking off to one side to see if the sheep would follow. No luck. It planted itself in front of the nest, spread its wings and poked into the sheep’s wool with its long beak. I’d seen this sort of stand-off before: usually the sheep gets deterred. But by this time the curlew was just about straddling the eggs, and the sheep still seemed stubbornly determined not to be side-tracked. At which point my desperate curlew opened wide his extraordinary long curved beak, and emitted a sort of screech I’d never heard before. Only seconds later another curlew appeared beside him, then another on his other side, both with wings raised. They formed a defensive flapping wall before the sheep’s eyes. For a while she held her ground, a big ewe. But their combined effort was enough. I heard a fourth curlew alarm-calling, glimpsed it flying past. With the danger averted, the third bird departed, leaving behind just the male’s mate, while the male itself returned to sit.

So now – by fortune, as I say – I knew there were at least four adult Curlew on this edge of the moor. Up till that point I’d suspected there might be more than one pair… but had remained conservative in my estimate.

Curlew

From that moment on, I knew I needed to think in terms of curlew populations in implementing conservation activities and strategies. Obvious, really. Nesting Curlew would have been far better able – when more numerous – to repel predators and disturbers. Sheep, by the way, will eat Curlew eggs, though I couldn’t tell that this was what was on this old ewe’s mind.

It may well be that when observing pairs of Curlew in mid-Wales we are looking at birds that appear to be living, but are already extinct here. And I don’t think this applies only to Curlew. Cuckoo look suspect to me. I happen to live where there are Cuckoo still calling, and I work in two moorland areas where they are still calling; but I suspect all three are fragile populations. In their case, it may be partly the drastic decline in those big toxic caterpillars which cuckoos are uniquely adapted to eating that has brought them to the same precarious edge. Lapwing have gone the same way, with the loss of spring-sown cereals and increased predation. Black Grouse went that way a while ago. Starlings may be on the way out as a breeding bird. Lesser-Spotted Woodpeckers. Hawfinches… 

Cuckoo

I could probably think of others, but the point is made. Birds can and do adapt, but once their populations are brought to a critical low-point, adapting hasn’t been enough.

I’m not a pessimist: I keep working to stop this happening. And let me say also that the Welsh Government is already taking great steps forward in its thinking through its Sustainable Management Schemes. But I’m laying down a marker in my concern over bit-by-bit coverage of the Welsh uplands by turbines. There were Curlew recorded near the Hendy site. There were Hen Harrier and Merlin recorded there too. But this was not enough to convince the Minister (a ‘raptor champion’) that Hendy (one of the most important feeding sites for raptors in mid-Wales) was the wrong place for a wind-farm.

So we’ve reached the point in Britain where even a Minister’s concern to generate green energy causes environmental harm. Maybe just a little bit of harm, for each windfarm. But those who look at the total picture realise these little bits of harm are dangerous, and we’re now at a more precarious point than is visible. Unless and until we can take a proper holistic overview of the state of the Welsh countryside and its land-management, it will get worse. 

It’s as a dynamic whole that the countryside functions or stops functioning. It’s widely indicated that by this measure Wales is looking worse than any other nation in Europe. I’m in no doubt that an honest holistic assessment would urgently advise implementing measures to improve biodiversity on farmland and upland commons before extending the windfarm network any further.