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Our Life at Denbury Farm Blog 22nd November 2017

What I would like more than anything is for my farm blog to be happy, with nice things happening and nice thing to write about, but unfortunately with the filth that is about there always seems to be nasty things happening to the wildlife by evil people. The photographs of one of the two buzzards that have obviously been shot by missing flight feathers was taken a few weeks ago. I wasn’t able to put it into the blogs as it was being investigated by the wildlife crime police officer. He reported back to me by email yesterday.

The photograph was sent to the RSPB who are classed as experts, who confirmed it was without seeing the actual circumstances of the injury was caused by a shotgun. It has been recorded it on their system and added as a crime on the Avon and Somerset Police system ref No. – 5217266079 if in the unlikely event someone in the area witnessed the shooting, The RSPB’s last report about shot Buzzards in my area was in 2013. Not a one off incident and just two that have been witnessed. How many more that have not been.

Mrs Farmer and myself may well have witnessed the event without realising when on a walk down the valley with the dogs a few weeks back. We were watching the resident Buzzards on the thermals above Nigel Webbers Pitpear Farm, fields belonging to Halse Farm and our own Denbury. We heard a shotgun being fired close by. All three buzzards dropped and flew out of the area.

Most birds of prey as the Buzzard all though protected are regularly shot in the vicinity of organised shoots. A few years ago Prince Harry was questioned by the Police when two Hen Harriers were shot at Sandringham, one of the Queens estates. He was seen with a friend in the area at the time. The same thing happened very close by, just this August. Here is a link with Dirty Harry with his shotgun with pockets bulging with cartridges. Filth, and taxpayers support them. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4260298/rare-bird-hawk-sally-disappeared-prince-harry-sandringham/ Sorry, I have always been a royalist, but not when they kill for fun and pretend to be conservationist with Elephants and Rhinos. Why is the Hen Harriers or birds of Prey worth any less? Because they eat a few pheasants. Less for them to shoot.

There are two organised shoot on the Denbury Farm boundaries. Nigel Webbers at Pitpear Farm and Halse Farm. There is another just a little bit farther away. I can’t imagine how many pheasants they release for the shooting is constant on their shooting days.

The Horses in their new winter rugs that we changed today. The original ones we purchased were not as good as advertised and we sent them back. These new ones have neck pieces to keep them a little warmer. We have a gale blowing through the valley tonight so I reckon the horses will be well pleased with their new outfits. The is still quite a lot of grass for them to eat. With luck they will be able to stay out a few weeks more before bringing them in for the winter.

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Our Life at Denbury Farm Blog 2nd November 2017

 

I wish they would stop messing about with the clocks going back and forward every year. Already it has taken us 3 days trying to get use to it and it will be a week or more to be able to fully get to the right time. The animals don’t know what time it is so we gradually change over the course of 10 days plus. Be great to get an extra hour lay in but unfortunately it would be on our minds and I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that the animals were waiting at the gates for breakfast.

The reasons they give for changing the clocks seem to change from one year to another. It use to be something to do with farming and the war years, but just recently it is because it will get dark so early in Scotland. What ever the reason it doesn’t do us a lot of good.

We are so fortunate to have the wildlife we have at Denbury. Three types of deer, two we see regularly, fox, badger, stoat, weasel, now and then the otter and so many species of birds that we loose count. We will put the bird feeder camera on over the next week. Unfortunately most birds on the farm don’t eat what we put out. A good few do.

In the spring of 2016, just after Springwatch we had a phone call from their production team who were considering Denbury as a Springwatch location. Unfortunately, maybe not unfortunately. The biggest problem would have been the very large artic lorries that would have needed to come. The location they chose had not all the wildlife that we have at Denbury, and I am not sure how we would be able to suffer the disruption to our life and how much it would disturb our wildlife