Andy
Page is Head of Wildlife Management at the Forestry Commission. Lymington &
District Naturalists’ Society recently benefitted from his great enthusiasm and
extensive knowledge when he came to talk to us about the work he’s done
throughout his career to protect and support birds of prey in the New Forest
and surrounding areas.
Andy
has always aimed to minimise potential detrimental effects of forestry
management on breeding raptors. The most important and effective way to do this
is to find the trees where these beautiful and enigmatic birds are nesting and
then ensure that no tree harvesting takes place near them. This careful
management and the New Forest high quality habitat has resulted in a thriving
population. After locating a nest it is then monitored through the breeding
cycle but with the absolute minimum of disturbance: these top predator birds
are schedule 1 listed so Andy has the necessary licence as well as one for
ringing the chicks and a certificate for climbing the trees to get to them and
put cameras in place.
The
New Forest has the perfect environment for the Common Buzzard to thrive and now
holds about 45 breeding pairs. It’s probably the most easily seen raptor often
perching on gateposts or fences or hunting for earthworms and insects on the
ground. When soaring it holds its wings pointing up in a diagnostic shallow ‘V’
shape. The Honey Buzzard in contrast is seen infrequently as it’s a much more
secretive bird; even someone as experienced as Andy has difficulty locating the
nests of this species. There can be up to seven breeding pairs in the New
Forest but numbers fluctuate from year to year. Most of the food for these
chicks is wasp larvae; parent birds raid wasp nests and take biscuit-size
pieces of comb containing larvae back to the nest where they give the juicy and
nutritious grubs to their young.
Sparrowhawks
were the first raptors that Andy studied. Initially he found it very difficult
to locate their nests having to walk miles for hours through conifer
plantations. However experience improved his skills and now he can confidently
predict the exact tree – usually a Scots Pine - where a nest is likely to be
found. The magnificent Goshawk is a big success story in
the New Forest. They were not known to breed anywhere in Hampshire until 2001
but there’s been a steady increase since then and now there are about 45 pairs
breeding in the Forest. They are in the same family as Sparrowhawks but are
twice the size. As big birds they need big trees in which to nest and often
select the tallest Douglas Firs. As with the Sparrowhawk pairs, Goshawk males
are only about two-thirds the size of the females. In both species the female
does all the egg incubation while the male hunts and brings her food until the
chicks are about 2½ weeks old and able to be left alone in the nest.
Throughout
the evening Andy showed us superb still photos and video footage of all these
and a number of other less common breeding species e.g. Hobby and Kestrel, plus
other raptors such as Red Kite and Osprey which don’t yet breed in our area but
may do so in the future. His presentation was clear and informative and was
much appreciated by the large and attentive audience.
Indoor
meetings of the Lymington & District Naturalists’ Society take place at The
Lymington Centre throughout the winter months and field meetings take place all
year round. See www.lymnats.org.uk for details of all these. Visitors are
always welcome.
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| A Male Kestrel hovering
© Richard Coomber
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