Update on Larsen Trap

I also don't have a problem with magpies, anymore than I have a problem with sparrowhawks, they eat the same food surely - the magpies also provide a street cleaning service in clearing up carrion too (although thats if they can get there before the crows! :D )

I watch the sparrowhawk pick the poor little songbirds from near the feeders in my garden, but hey - a birds gotta eat :)

I feed the songbirds, and inadvertently (sp!!) feed crows, magpies, pigeons, pheasants, squirrels too - and I've no doubt the fox would eat some of the seed/fat ball mess on the floor given half a chance!

Thanks for the bit above about swallows though, never considered a magpie getting ours - will make sure I shut the top stable doors this year :)
 
Fransurrey said:
RutlandH2O said:
Can I just point out to everyone that this is not my quote? Rutland, please can you take care to quote properly, as many people below are responding to this as though I've said it and I haven't. Thanks.

Just to clarify more, my issue with the trap in my post was that many birds were trapped in succession, each being placed into the adjoining (closed) chamber. When I spoke to the lady who had set the trap, they had already been there for well over 24 hours and the trap must have been checked to move the birds into the next chamber. This is what I have issue with. From reading posts here, this is an illegal use of such a trap. Can't remember who said they checked regularly and dispatched the decoy bird and replaced with the newly caught one, but that doesn't irk me half as much. Still think plain and simple shooting is kinder, though.
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Sorry, Fransurrey.

In all the years I've been chronicling the comings and goings of swallows to our farm, last year, 8 April, was the latest by 4 days. We're now on 10 April, and not a dickybird, I mean swallow.
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Alec Swan said:
I'm only hoping that others will see that I am as passionate as I am about wildlife, all of it, and that includes Magpies!!

Not really what you're getting across on this thread...

..................................

I didn't watch the One Show, for a very good reason. None of them could give a flying ***k for wildlife, the law, or us. That, I'm sorry to tell you is the truth.

The One Show, like every other TV programme has nothing to do with reality, or truth. It has everything to do with ratings, and B*** S***!! Not what you want to hear, perhaps, but the truth, none-the-less.

Alec.
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Hee hee is that why you were on Countryfile then? For the ratings?


Anyway, back to what I wanted to say - our swallows come every year on the 19th April - hence why I've been shifting rugs and things that will get pooped on today to get ready. Our swallows have never gone in the same nest twice. I wish they would - damage limitation! I can't put plastic over the horses and their haynets... Today I've been knocking down the previous nests in the hopes of them going back in the unused shelter/haylage shed!!

I don't understand how watching a magpie torturing a smaller bird would incite you to go and torture a magpie!! Are you not more rational than a magpie going about its natural way?? Personally, around where we live I haven't seen any increase of magpies or ecrease of songbirds. Perhaps its because I'm in the greenbelt not areas that are being destroyed by builders and changing the environment?? Who knows.
 
I didn't watch the One Show, for a very good reason. None of them could give a flying ***k for wildlife, the law, or us. That, I'm sorry to tell you is the truth.

The One Show, like every other TV programme has nothing to do with reality, or truth. It has everything to do with ratings, and B*** S***!! Not what you want to hear, perhaps, but the truth, none-the-less.

Alec.

Dead right, note people watching Rogue traders, as they come out with another
holier than though moan about how much someone charges, while they milk us with a licence fee paying obscene wages to botox filled overpayed headicks to read from an autocue, people in glass house's, but I digress....
 
I don't understand how watching a magpie torturing a smaller bird would incite you to go and torture a magpie!! Are you not more rational than a magpie going about its natural way?? Personally, around where we live I haven't seen any increase of magpies or ecrease of songbirds. Perhaps its because I'm in the greenbelt not areas that are being destroyed by builders and changing the environment?? Who knows.


Good point, I think maybe planners and developers should be put in a cage, MASSIVE housing sites go up, and then it's moan moan moan about some poor displaced animal having the audacity to shitte on their shiny cancer emitting machines bonnet.
 
Rollin said:
The One Show tonight showed a 'sting' involving a gamekeeper trapping pigeons in a Larsen to attract birds of prey.

He got 100 hours of community service and £10K in costs.
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Yes that's right, that's what I read. That it's illegal to trap anything but rook, crow, jay, magpie and I think it was jackdaw (not certain). Any other bird should be released immediately. Some people try to catch birds of pray (presumably because some wally will pay a small fortune to buy one).
 
I think the catching of birds of prey is more due to them preying on game, though I think cars 'prey' on game a darn sight more... ;)

Alec, for once I agree with you. I would rather sit in a larsen trap myself and squark like a magpie on 'the 4th plinth' than watch that shite. :D
 
Niraf said:
Well done for saying something. Too many people keep quiet and cruelty continues because no-one wants to offend the cruel party.
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I actually think Larsen traps are pretty humane, providing the trap bird is fed and watered, and dispatched after a couple of days - I really can't see the problem.

Magpies really can be a huge pest, and decimate our songbird friends and visitors - so to my mind, it's an excellent way of controlling magpie numbers.
 
Naturally said:
............
I'm not saying its straight forward, I can see the need to control species which have got out of control, but is the larsen trap really the best way?
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There isn't actually a best way, the Larsen trap is simply a tool, and it's one of many.

Another point which I missed, was for those who find it distressing to see a call bird in a cage, when it's fluttering about. It's doing that because of your presence, and it's you who's causing the distress. If you don't believe me, take a pair of decent binoculars, a car makes a suitable hide, and from as far away as you can, observe the bird, as I have. It will very soon settle. It's apparent panic is caused by the spectator, not its confinement.

Alec.
 
Alec Swan said:
There isn't actually a best way, the Larsen trap is simply a tool, and it's one of many.

Another point which I missed, was for those who find it distressing to see a call bird in a cage, when it's fluttering about. It's doing that because of your presence, and it's you who's causing the distress. If you don't believe me, take a pair of decent binoculars, a car makes a suitable hide, and from as far away as you can, observe the bird, as I have. It will very soon settle. It's apparent panic is caused by the spectator, not its confinement.

Alec.
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I tend to disagree with this - although remain open minded! In my experience most trapped wild birds will display a very typical behaviour - hopping up and down from perch to floor - side to side - often banging the heads repeatedly on the mesh. Certainly from distant observations that I have done (not all on corvids but on illegally trapped finches etc) they are rarely still and calm - certainly not for the first days anyway.

Fact remains - there is no point anyone really arguing the use of larsen traps - they are in use and for the forseeable future will remain in use. The argument should lie in the fact that not all that set these traps are doing so legally and humanely, by ommitting food/water/shelter.
 
Alec Swan said:
There isn't actually a best way, the Larsen trap is simply a tool, and it's one of many.

Another point which I missed, was for those who find it distressing to see a call bird in a cage, when it's fluttering about. It's doing that because of your presence, and it's you who's causing the distress. If you don't believe me, take a pair of decent binoculars, a car makes a suitable hide, and from as far away as you can, observe the bird, as I have. It will very soon settle. It's apparent panic is caused by the spectator, not its confinement.

Alec.
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If you had read my post you will have seen me say that when i looked out of the bathroom window to talk to my partner who was stood leaning over the gate I saw the bird flapping around out of the corner of my eye. No one was anywhere near it.
 
applecart14 said:
If you had read my post you will have seen me say that when i looked out of the bathroom window to talk to my partner who was stood leaning over the gate I saw the bird flapping around out of the corner of my eye. No one was anywhere near it.
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Yes, they will occasionally flutter around the cage - but more often than not they just sit quietly.
 
Honey08 said:
Yeah I'm sure a wild bird has a great time sitting in a cage, and no stress at all!
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Where did I say it wasn't stressful? I'm sure it is. But, as I said in my previous post, providing the bird is dispatched within a couple of days, the stress will be limited.

Different views, obviously, on this slightly contentious issue.
 
I am unlikely to ever be convinced a larsen trap is a humane way to deal with the problem. If I said I was using the same method to deal with feral cats, using an in season female in a cage for 4 days or so would anyone say its an acceptable method? I remain unconvinced a wild creature suddenly adapts to a cage. Ime trapped animals will give up struggling out of exhaustion but not because they aren't stressed.
 
Yes I rather think that the animal not fluttering about does not equal not under stress. I will also have to settle for just plain disagreeing with those who believe that providing food, shelter and water makes it okay to keep a wild bird in a small cage in a different territory for 48 hours, in the hope that multiple local birds will try to attack it.

It would be interesting to hear from people who have shot them, rather than using the larsen. Is it much more difficult and less effective?
 
I've just been round my lambing ewes, and our 'keeper has a trap set on the other side of the fence. I wondered over to it, seeing an Oyster Catcher, which seemed unable, or unwilling to move. Eventually it got up and wandered off, leaving behind two beautiful eggs. The nest, which actually is only a depression in the ground, is a mere 80 yards from the trap. I hope that they'll be OK, and if they aren't, it's war!!

Oyster Catchers seem to nest amongst my ewes and lambs, every year, and they always seem to hatch off. I've watched inquisitive lambs get their noses pecked, more than once! I also have another tenancy which has extensive grazing, and the Stone Curlew seem to always nest amongst the ewes and lambs there too. I wonder if the movement of sheep around them forms some sort of camouflage. As the OCs, they always seem to hatch off their young, and winged vermin seems to have little effect.

Alec.
 
amymay said:
No, attack is not the purpose - attraction is.
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No attack is the purpose, surely?

That is why the caught magpie (the decoy) is out of the neighbourhood. Magpies are extremely territorial so others try to attack the bird they don't recognise. That is how the Larsen trap works. Correct me if I am wrong Alec?

Out of interest magpies also pair for life, so somewhere there is a magpie without its mate, whilst another magpie struggles to free itself from its wire confinement to try to go back to it. And struggles, and struggles.
 
applecart14 said:
No attack is the purpose, surely?

That is why the caught magpie (the decoy) is out of the neighbourhood. Magpies are extremely territorial so others try to attack the bird they don't recognise. That is how the Larsen trap works. Correct me if I am wrong Alec?

Out of interest magpies also pair for life, so somewhere there is a magpie without its mate, whilst another magpie struggles to free itself from its wire confinement to try to go back to it. And struggles, and struggles.
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The decoy bird is in a separate compartment. The birds outside see and hear the decoy, investigate, enter the compartments next to the decoy, but can't attack because of the wire between them. So, it is to attract the birds into the trap.
 
amymay said:
No, attack is not the purpose - attraction is.
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The decoy bird is in a separate compartment. The birds outside see and hear the decoy, investigate, enter the compartments next to the decoy, but can't attack because of the wire between them. So, it is to attract the birds into the trap
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:confused: yes... attracted to attack/chase off/kill whatever. It just can't successfully attack it. Which presumably adds to the stress of both birds, as they are then forced to reside in close quarters to each other and I would bet the wire doesn't stop them from trying to have a go at each other.

PS Amymay, I'm sorry to see your two beautiful pussy cats are looking for a new home :(
 
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lannerch said:
Have they been eating all the songbirds ;)
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If that is a question, I have to say around our farm, yes. The decline in songbirds has been dramatic, while the increase in magpies has been very visible (and audible). That said, I still haven't seen a single swallow.
 
It's still early to see swallows.
The decline of the songbird is on the most part due to change in farming practices as has been mentioned.
Not really amymays mine or any one else's cats or even those fared magpies who i think i am correct in saying are like the songbirds are our natural species and not introduced like the grey squirrel.
 
lannerch said:
It's still early to see swallows.
The decline of the songbird is on the most part due to change in farming practices as has been mentioned.
Not really amymays mine or any one else's cats or even those fared magpies who i think i am correct in saying are like the songbirds are our natural species and not introduced like the grey squirrel.
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In my neck of the woods, this is quite late for the swallows. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been keeping records of the swallows' arrivals, broods, repeat broods, departures for going on 18 years, and the latest arrival was last year on 8 April, which was 4 days later than our previous late arrival of 4 April the year before. Ours is not a commercial farm, it's 13 acres of paddocks, cottage gardens, 2 natural ponds, ancient farm house and turn-of-the-century farm buildings. We have never sprayed any chemicals on the paddocks or gardens. We keep 5 Shire horses, 2 donkeys, 8 pet sheep, 3 hens, 1 cat (he adopted us) and 2 dogs. There has been a dramatic change in the bird population here. Our cat rarely catches birds. Rabbits are his preferred prey. Years ago, I never saw a magpie around here. We had great numbers of blue and great tits, starlings, chaffinches, green finches. Now, there are magpies everyday, no chaffinches, green finches, great tits, the occasional blue tit, and very few starlings. Sparrows, black birds and thrushes (song and mistle) are pretty constant. In summer, when I hear the magpies in the hedgerow, and the alarm calls of song bird parents, it sends a chill down my spine. I know, they and their broods have to eat, but there just seems to be lack of balance.
 
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