2021

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan looks at what's involved when creating a new pheasant shoot from scratch.

Today we sent this letter to Màiri McAllan MSP, newly appointed to the Scottish Government as Minister for Environment, Biodiversity & Land Reform.

Over the last few months, we have been eagerly watching the activity of the nesting pair of barn owls on Owl Box LIVE. Earlier in the season we captured evidence that the pair were breeding and subsequently the female laid four eggs.

Habitat loss for over 80 years, often incentivised by Government to increase food production, will not be reversed overnight but there is cause for hope. 

The drive to plant trees to sequester carbon raises the potential conflict between carbon and biodiversity and at present it seems that carbon trumps biodiversity.

The breeding season is moving along swiftly, and the pair of breeding barn owls within one of our Owl Box Initiative project nest boxes can frequently be seen continuing to cement their bond with one another. Courtship behaviour is an important part of bonding in breeding barn owl pairs and begins over winter and throughout the nesting season.

Defra have published their long awaited General Licence for gamebird releasing on European Protected Sites. Releasing pheasants and red-legged partridges in the protected sites and within a 500m buffer around them will be licensed for an interim period of four years whilst Defra and NE undertake work to assess impacts of gamebird management on individual sites.

The bird which GWCT is probably most associated with is the Grey partridge yet in Wales we have very few left. 

The pair of barn owls occupying one of our Owl Box Initiative project boxes have chosen their nesting site and the male has been provisioning the female regularly.

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan discusses the move away from use lead shot and shares his own personal experience.