Date: Monday, December 05 @ 09:30:01 UTC
Well, the first week in December at the Goldenloch has probably been the quietest for a long time, mostly due to the weather, however both Saturday and Sunday were nice days, albeit maybe a tad cold, the cormorants are being a bit troublesome with four or five arriving every morning SNH have declined me a Licence to shoot any, on the grounds that, and I quote “On the basis of our own assessment and advice received we feel that there is a lack of information provided” but I gave them the numbers visiting and their regularity, also it goes on to say “SNH can only grant a licence if we have evidence to show that serious damage is being inflicted on a fishery” so marked fish and eaten fish obviously isn’t enough or is it that they just want me to fill in the questions asked in the booklet they sent headed “Licensing Arrangements for Shooting Birds to Prevent Serious Damage to Fisheries” Its basically due to the fact that complete and utter ***** are running this country, we have very little wild bird life left in this beautiful part of North East Fife due to the dummies that are in charge, yes we have a dozen or so Buzzards, three or four Sea Eagles, loads of Cormorants Crows and Jackdaws, but what happened to every thing else we used to have, masses of Robins, Sparrows, Blackbirds, Blue tits, Chaffinch to name a few and our bird feeder is like an abandoned cold war relic, my Father and Mother, both deceased now spent every day in their retirement feeding the wildlife so much so that when visiting them it was like trying to get into a birdcage, they got so much pleasure from doing so, one of my fathers favourite sayings was, “It’s a gie poor man that canny feed the wee birds,” but now that the Government do gooders have reintroduced the top of the tree birds of prey, which basically have eaten everything or scared it away, why what possible good is it doing and who wants Sea Eagles, Buzzards, Cormorants, before set aside and field margins we had a balanced nature with an eco system that worked now we have a very unbalanced system with predators bigger and stronger than ever, due to the huge amount of easy food and no one controlling them, I have lived here all my life and see ruin in many forms, but now it’s a real tragedy.

To Book for Fishing, Call John on 01337840355 or 07968006367.

or email john@goldenloch.co.uk

or visit The Goldenloch

I will have to split my answer to this post into 2 john.
Firstly you ''MUST' continue to apply for a licence to cull cormorants,even when they do not issue you with 1.If you fail to apply and other fisheries do the same then Defra/SNH will go to their masters and say they have solved the problem because no one applied for a licence (therefor there cant be a problem)It is worthwhile going to your local MP and tell him/her that they are being obsructive and your buisiness is strugling
Your assessment of why there is a lack of small birds is crazy.you can't have it both ways.Sea Eagles do not prey on hedgrow birds.Buzzards mostly eat carrion./rabbits/ mice/beatles.Bottom line is no small birds,no birds that prey on them.Sparrowhawks/carrion crows/jays/magpies,but you say there is plenty of them.then they must have something to eat.I have been to fife many times to watch birds.never had any problems seeing them.Farming practises could be more bird freindly.but that's another subject altogether.

Jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

i understand why you are peeved off with the SNH , i used to volunteer for them but they put me right off wanting to offer my free time to them when they were not even polite enough to answer a phone call i made or answer a msg i left on there answer machine, it left me questioning should i bother wasting my time with them, after all when they seen me take up fly fishing if looks could kill i would have been dead that day they seen me showing up with all my fishing gear.

i would hardly go to the extent of saying birds of prey are the cause of smaller birds vanishing , i have feeders in my garden and every day its covered in blue tits , coal tits , great tits. blackbirds , song thrush ... house sparrows , tree sparrows. and we have our 1 robin i say 1 because he defends the entire back garden as his, lets no other robin near. some days he wont even let the blackbirds near the garden either. even chases off the starlings .
there are several causes of garden birds to vanishing , pollution , pesticides in gardens , poor year for natural feed.
And i read in an email i got from RSPB a while back farmers that used to keep wild boarders around there fields maybe getting rid of them because the extra money they were paid to encourage wildlife back into fields was being cut, but i have heard no more about that so dont know if the money was stopped or not.
Where i walk my dog though is alive with birds several robins , wrens and all the usual garden birds, there are even wax wings showing up here around Kinross , not that i have been lucky enough to see one yet.

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there is a difference between Living and Surviving in this world and a very thin line between success and failure.

I hear what you are saying and i totally agree, the system is wrong and it needs revamped to bring back the proper balance.
How can SNH say they need more evidence?
Possibly because they are in bed with the RSPB?

I could never understand the need for pics of damaged fish, surely the majority of fish are marked and then eaten.
The best evidence is when a cormorant has been gutted and its last meal removed from its gullet.

You would think if you kept a good record of their visits to your fishery then that would be enough evidence but sadly not.

Do you know where the birds are roosting?

We are doing a cormorant census on the Clyde. We have been carrying out cormorant counts as the birds head back to roost.
We simultaneously count the birds at all the sites on the same night.

We have 3 main night roosts spread out on the Clyde system and last year we counted around 114 birds on the one night.

Each bird consumes one third of its body weight in fish each day.
Now the birds prey on all fish, grayling, trout, minnows, parr etc.
Even thou some of these fish are not sporting fish like the minnows and Parr there should still be a financial value added to these small fish after all the Parr will one day return to the river as a salmon which is the highest value fish in the system.

The reason we carried out the census was to put down a bench mark on how many birds were living inland on the Clyde and put an end to speculation.
When we do a count this year we will be able to measure it against last years count.
Only then can we tell if the numbers are increasing or decreasing.

For more info:

Cormorant Census

It is also worth while updating the cormorant watch website even thou the angling trust are based in England if they gather national statistics and make any head way lobbying government then in time it will help lobby the Scottish government.

Cormorant Watch

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www.tintotroutfishery.co.uk
www.anglersholidaycottages.co.uk

I live a lot further south than you but I could have written every word. I do understand your worries. I actually wrote something very similer on my blog a few weeks ago

Becks and Brown Trout: What changes for the river

Not sure many people see it like we do...

Andy

Jim, I hear what you are saying about the large birds not wanting to eat the smaller ones, but something is wrong, its positively eerie, the area here used to be prolific in bird life and small animals rabbits hares etc, we have virtually gone from one extreme to the other, it just happens to coincide with what’s happening out and about with the reintroduction of large birds of prey, I am pretty certain that even only their presence in the sky is enough to frighten the smaller parts of the food chain, screeching eagles can be heard for quite a long way off, why do we need to have these big birds, what purpose do they serve, the buzzards are defiantly the worst, easily observed catching anything that moves, we have a very frosty morning to-day with a light snow covering usually perfect for the birds to come to the feeders, is it happening, not really.

Sea Eagles are very lazy predators,who would rather pick up carrion.In fact if they find a sheep/deer carcass they will hang about the area till they have devoured the lot.they are perfectly happy to sit on a perch ,be it pole or tree for 7 out of 8 available daylight hours.Buzzards have returned in large numbers because of the unlimited supply of rabbits/pheasant poults/carrion on the road.and no keepers shooting them(though they are trying to get them taken off the protected list)The only Corvid member to be on the protected list is the chough.(rightly so) but carrion crows/magpies have moved into urban areas.with a huge increase in numbers.they are probably the worst offenders when it comes to robbing bird nests.
We have just had 2 very long, hard.(for small birds)winters.this has cut numbers dramatically.
Do not be so critical of top of the pile predators.It's when they start to become scarce that you know there is something amiss.and when they are about in heathy numbers that things are in balance.

Jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

controversial but why even apply for a licence? a rimfire with a silencer would do the trick and no one needs ever know!

That used to be the way, and it was my way, in days of old, but sadly now I need a licence to stock fish, to have a gun, this is even harder than its ever was before, not to have a criminal record, are all part of why I have to apply for a licence, to-day we have so many rules and so many obligations and apart from that now a days we also have a lot of people out walking dogs and it would be just my luck that a person from SNH was walking past, and to quite honest its good that my type of person is brought under control as who gave me or you the right to shoot things, but unfortunately these people that are in control have gone to far the other way

Round here the sea eagles prey on the likes of cormorants and other sea birds, they have even taken red throated divers, eagles are usally quite quiet the buzzards are really noisy, crows are bullies, magpies have a big impact on small birds, but if you put food out predators will come,easker1