Lapwing's Return

Lapwing's Return - pastel sketch on paper

Hypocrisy rules the roost in this day and age. The priest who tenderly Christens the child is just as likely to abuse that child later, or the blinkered politician who listens to an authoritarian lie then firmly believes in that lie to make life changing decisions. One is nastier than the other for the obvious reason that abuse destroys one individual, but, on the other hand, a politician through misled policy making can ruin hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

Young Golden Eagle female, very large lass

Political decision making can easily be corrupted by authoritarian influence. The researcher who boasts in having a Doctorate of Philosophy, in one channelled subject, may use that pompously influential degree to further an unrelated, subjective agenda.  Consequently, the world has inherited a wodge of experts sullied by their own beliefs, and self perpetuating professions that soak up demands for money. These charitable skills involved in acquiring cash for the benefit of Scotland's wildlife know no bounds.

Adult Golden Eagle flying with baggage, a satellite transmitter - a cruel burden

The Golden Eagle has no boundaries in the highlands while flying above the lands of Royal Deeside in eastern Scotland, but a burden of abuse rides with the eagle pictured above. Like the child that carries the scars of imposed abuse around for life, our eagles also carry the implements of culpability on their down bared backs. These implements of torture are imposed by experts and business sponsors who force the bird into a make-do harness in order to support a satellite transmitter that relays the bird's position globally; that is when it works. Today we have the company of three Golden Eagles that are hunting any meal that could include goose, hare, or grouse, and one has a satellite transmitter fitted, or sat tag in common parlance.

Young male Golden Eagle

This eagle looks burdened as it flies with a huge lump on its back .... it is the Quasimodo of the highlands, and a sacrificial mockery. The future welfare of this bird is uncalculated by the experts who have forced this bird to fly with baggage, and that term could possibly be for life. The transmitter harnessing often fails in a life threatening tangle and numerous birds have been seen with trailing straps and out of place transmitters. A prison sentence for sure, and it should also be a prison sentence for those who shout "illegal persecution on a grouse moor" when the transmitter fails to send a signal without any tangible evidence that persecution has actually occurred.

Eagle predated goose

The conspiracy hatched by sat tagging experts to reveal illegal persecution initially, has sprouted twisted wings and legs that bends nature's beautiful spectrum of light towards corruptible blackness. That, once upon a time, virtuous philosophy to catch 'bad men' killing eagles has become a falsified religion where the high priests are expert hypocrites hanging on to a thread of deception to make the common man believe in lies. Now to prove their worth and make lies into truth, a mechanism for 'legal justice' has been charitably created and the floodgates will open for the common man to partake in the pursuit of 'bad men' through their donations; like a pack of misled hounds chasing an aniseed trail ..... and the celebrated 'expert' directors and their purses will be happy.

Mountain Hare

Back to the moor, and reality. In this area, Mountain Hare have taken to the higher slopes where patches of snow still survive the ongoing thaw and dozens reluctantly scamper over the heath before us and only then do we enter the realm of the Golden Eagle. We pass the ancient well of Saint Colm on the Fir Mounth track, and a wee prayer was recited to let us see eagles as the wind hummed a hymn on the ancient wrought iron posts that line the march between the lands of Birse and Tanar .... and it worked, three times!

Eagle predated Mountain Hare

Saint Colm took on the Picts in north-east Scotland during the fifth century by initiating places of Christian worship ..... poor lad. The reputed blue woad that decorated Pictish faces was tenderly sponged off by him in an attempt to replace it with a hunger for the gold leaf found in the early Catholic church, and of course Christian purity. The practical achievements of St. Colm, in his lifetime, strike me as being confused by historical records, and seem to have been diffused by the cumulative effect of the early Catholic church and sometimes erroneously attributed to St. Columba, St. Drostan or St. Fergus. The tiny church in the Forest of Birse, which is a few miles from the well, is said to be on the site of one of his early places of worship.

Moody, singing Raven

The mists of the thaw beetle down over the dark hills to push a flock of fifty Lapwings around the hill pastures that skirt the heather moors and the green plovers are here to breed in an unchanged land that time has almost forgotten, and just as well. For these Lapwings are threatened by change, and it is an uncalculated change that the publicists with celebrity status or the agenda driven common man or those experts with Ph.D's want to 'Revive' - (the coalition for grouse moor reform). An unknown revival where Stoats, Rats and Red Foxes will rule the roost for these Lapwings, bringing chaos to breeding and a further, dwindling crash in their population. 

St. Colm's Well

Revivalist, and green fashionable, notions to love every creature on earth however is a humanly contrived virtue of pathos and does not apply to the animal kingdom where the Golden Eagle will kill and rip to bits a screaming Mountain Hare and the Stoat will ring the neck of the Lapwing chick. At what point in the human mind does the much vaunted eagle then become the despised slaughterer of the hare instead of the gun toting hunter on the grouse moor? I presume that thought never enters the minds of those affected ..... or afflicted by cute and cuddly pathos.

Lapwing flock

The Lapwings are above it all, for the now, as they dance black wings and white bellies o'er black hills that weep streaks of snow, and they only have one thing driving them onwards. The Call of Spring tugs at their feathers to breed, and this once common bird of all farmland has been relentlessly pushed into the corners of the heather glens where the old methods of farming still rule, and game-keepers control nest robbing predators. Let us keep those ways, and reward those who practise them or work the land traditionally in the favour of all nesting birds.

Lapwing flock

After all, monetary reward usually falls into the purses of those who least deserve it, yet have the loudest voices and biggest appetites. The image of a fat, young Cuckoo in the moorland Meadow Pipit's nest abusing the caring nature of the tiny, surrogate parents comes to mind. A governed redistribution of big payouts from 'fat' conservation organisations to local communities would go a long way to help local folk working the land to find local conservation solutions that do not cost the earth.

Sheep pasture land skirting the moors

Notes;........article in progress............

All text, sketches and photos are done on the 16 February 2019 and subject to copyright - no reproduction.

My new book 'Wildsketch' is available from Blurb bookshop

Income from book sales will form a donation to CABS (Committee Against Bird Slaughter)

If you are inspired to go out into the hills and glens of Scotland please leave it as you find it, respect the environment, do not litter or discard so called 'biodegradable' fruit and especially if you are a dog walker keep your beast on a lead and do not bag up its waste then chuck it by the wayside. I recently came across one black poo bag neatly hung on a tree branch for someone else to take home and also a bright blue one thrown in the moorland verge....why?

Moorland birds like Golden Plover, Dunlin, Dotterel, Ptarmigan and many raptors nest on the ground, it is advisable to keep dogs at heel or preferably on leads when walking on the high plateaux of the Cairngorms during summer months.

Please be aware that it is illegal to disturb nesting eagles or other raptors and you may do so inadvertently in your journeys into the highlands. Observe protected species at a respectful distance usually from about 1000 metres and for short periods of time only.

No wildlife was unduly or knowingly disturbed by my presence or for the purposes of this web page other than what would be expected on a normal hill walk. Many geographic names and location recognizable photos have been omitted to prevent persecution or ringing-monitoring disturbance to named species.

Canon camera 200D with optical zoom lens EFS 55-250mm used; please note that the zoom range distance if given is calculated by OS map from subject location to camera.