Two birds that few people seems to have even a half civil word to say about, are the magpie and the cormorant. Recently a correspondent wrote crossly to Country Life "astonished that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds does not believe that magpies contribute significantly to the decline of small birds. We are in no doubt as to who are the culprits "stated the correspondent after mourning the fact that her garden used to be full of parent birds feeding their young, but this year hardly any were to be seen and the tits' nesting box was untenanted. Her garden, she reports dismally, is now characterised by "magpies, raucous crows, pigeons, collared doves and few hardy sparrows.
The cormorant figures in two places in last Friday's London Times. One report by their environmental correspondent says that cormorants do less damage to fish stocks than anglers think. Scientists said the birds often fed on fry and sticklebacks and other non sport fish. An environmental spokesman, hardly a fisherman, said "the birds are simply better at catching fish than the anglers." A different approach.
Cormorants may be shot, under licence, if anglers can prove that they are depleting fish stocks, but anglers illegally shooting the birds can be fined up to £1,000 per bird. And then a spokesman for the animal rights group Animal Aid is quoted as saying that it is utterly perverse, in a civilised culture, to shoot birds because they need to feed themselves on fish that anglers wish to take for pleasure.
Then, on another page, Simon Barnes "rejoices in the cormorant, the bird anglers despise," and asks: "But even if cormorants affected fish stocks, so what Cormorants are part of British life." A powerful stroke for the cormorant. So this bird, which he describes as "slightly majestic, slightly comical, slightly sinister" is likely to go on being protected. As it is here. And you'll remember old Ralph Payne Gallwey's story of a cormorant he came across and shot, which could not fly because inside, it was carrying a trout of nearly three pounds. A trout of three pounds is a big fish. Don't believe it. And while cormorants are appearing in land on small Irish rivers, they don't seem to be causing a panic among the anglers.