Missed netting (Ringing recovery LE90261)

Ringed in Rainham just a little south of the estuary in October 2014, a Blackbird, was found by a member of the public just some three kilometres to the east in May this year. A recovery of such a short distance and time, whilst of value as scientific data, would not normally merit a blog entry here, but for the finding circumstances:

- released (alive) from nets to protect crops (cherries)

Good on the landowner in this instance. For all of the time I have been birding, this netting has niggled me. Not as much when used properly, but when left in situ long after it has stopped serving a purpose, it niggles. This set of pictures were taken back in the winter, showing old netting locally (and still in place the last time I walked by). 

I first saw netting in this particular orchard way back in the mid-1980s, when it was already more hole(y) than righteous. The two other birders I was with that day really didn't like such netting at all, stating it to be a death trap. Over all the years I can only recall ever finding (and freeing) a Song Thrush and a Goldfinch, plus nearly helping a Green Woodpecker that was only pretending to be caught- essentially the mesh is of a size that deters rather than entangles.

In some ways I have tried to justify a lack of vigilante trespass and selective snipping by thoughts such as 'only causing as many problems as nearby un-netted windows' or 'I've found more casualties on the local road', but it still really niggles every time I see it.

Perhaps it is the aesthetics? Another continual reminder that something many members of the public would just ignore as 'countryside' is anything but- another poor attempt to tame the wild, another signal that there's no place safe for nature.

Still, cherry orchards have become rare locally, and netted trees even rarer. The garden of England looks more like the concrete patio of England every day. What crops there are need more and more poly-tunnels and the suchlike.

Plus ca change, plus cest la meme chose.

The local windmill has been gone from the area for a century now, perhaps time to stop tilting at such things. Or perhaps on dusk I ought to take a stroll out that way and check if it is all still up there?

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