BBC & The Black Winged Stilt
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public/Ian Magness
One of the UK’s rarest birds is raising a family in Kent after escaping record temperatures further south, nature experts say.
Four black-winged stilt chicks have recently fledged in Worth Marshes, near Sandwich, after a pair of the birds arrived from Africa in the spring.
It is believed the species is flying further north as climate change causes its natural habitat in countries like Spain to become too hot.
"The wetland habitat is so incredibly important for them to breed," said Vicki Peaple, a warden for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in Worth Marshes.
The nature reserve has been especially prepared to welcome black-winged stilts, which wildlife presenter Bill Oddie named "one of the world’s most elegant birds".
New water control structures have been put in that hold the water in the winter and control levels over spring and the summer.
"It’s been a big, big change but it’s produced some wonderful results," said Izzy Donovan, senior site manager.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5138mvyv51o#
Climate change?
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the black-winged stilt has often visited these shores in the past:
Coward 1926
Witherby 1946
.
Bannerman & Lodge 1961
Birds of Wiltshire 2007
As for “escaping record temperatures further south”, given that the birds arrived in spring, I can only say they must have seen a more reliable weather forecast than the Met Office’s 3-Month Outlook!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Another story from the BBC that doesn’t have legs.
‘Birds of Dumfriesshire’ – 1684. Brilliant 🙂
Unlike the bird itself!
The argument about Spain being too hot seems unlikely. Too dry in certain years would be reasonable. You really have to be desperate (and mendacious) automatically to hang “global warming” on every species that strays outside its “normal” range every now and again.
It’s nonsense on stilts, so to speak.
PH/JP/IM – Tony Heller would be purring reading this..
One very hot day about 2003/4ish, I parked up for lunch near Worth Marshes with the car door open and listening to Test Match Special. Out of the blue a Police Officer turned up on foot and asked me the latest score. “Where are you parked?” I asked. He said just behind those bushes as he was on a stakeout.
The famous road sign pointing to both the nearby village of Ham on the Sandwich Road (reading Ham Sandwich) had been stolen so many times the parish council had requested action be taken! He said “You know, I know but …..”
He then went on that at least he liked the bird watching and pointed out some Stilts to me. I am no ornithologist but they did look quite cute and unusual and this was before the water retaining works.
Migrating birds can be blown off course by storms. It happens.
How they know it was actually ‘climate change’ is amazing. Climate scientist knowledge goes beyond our capability to understand.
It could as easily point to the fact that climate scientists – or at least BBC climate reporters – are bird-brains.
Since the vast majority remainbwhere they are supposed be, these ones must be the lunatic fringe Alarmists.
Alarmists are blessed with short memory, which is the essence of alarmism.
I am not sure about the particular case in Kent but see the RSPB (https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/rspb-news-stories/black-winged-stilts/#:~:text=The%20Black%2Dwinged%20Stilt%20bred,ve%20bred%20in%20Lincolnshire%20though.)
“The Black-winged Stilt bred only four times in the UK between 1945 and 2005. In more recent years, however, we have seen an increase; 2017 was deemed a ‘record year’ with 13 chicks fledging across Kent, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.”
You have to be particularly determined to turn a blind eye to ignore the changes to birdlife in recent years – remember when an Egret was rare sight?
But you have to be particularly careful hiw you assign a reason for such activity also.
PS: We have a nesting Egret on the small river that runs through my garden (in the Midlands) and they’ve been here for five or more years. They have a very distinctive call – something like, Coyyy! But with a bell-like overtone.
Egrets…I’ve had a few, but then again….
Yes we have nesting regular nesting Egrets here and take them for granted. When they first arrived about 15-20 years ago ornithologists travelled miles to come and see them.
I see Egrets and Herons regularly on Stonebridge Pond and Faversham Creek. I assume they are nesting out on the marshes. A few months ago I saw a Heron grab and swallow a four inch Goldfish(!) from Stonebridge Pond. The allotment holders on the old gunpowder works in Stonebridge Pond have seen Goldfish up to ten inches. All climate refugees no doubt.
You don’t have to assign reason when it’s a tiny, tiny number of the population. There’s no reason when 99.999% of these birds are where they’ve always been. It’s clearly an exception with no trend (note the record was in 2017).
Is it Climate Change, changes to eenvironment in Britain or where they are located now, increased population in Europe, introduction of breeding pairs, encouraging wild migrants stop here, or wild birds re-establishing themselves?
How many species were hunted to extinction, how many departed by changing agriculture, or urbanisation?
Harry How long have you been waiting for an opportunity to make that joke? Nice one.
They are all possible. Therefore, it is only a tiny element in the overall evidence the earth is warming – and of course the cause of that warming is a different question.
Mark, you might as well ask, what was the cause of the little ice age, or the Roman warm period. Somewhere in the answer would be the word, natural.
You have to be an idiot to think that when 99.999% of a bird population is where its always been, a literal handful of exceptions demonstrates anything. And 2017 was six years ago. Since then, numbers have declined, which according to your logic means its cooling.
There are many continental bird species that could quite easily breed here but have yet to cross the Channel in significant numbers. When the field at the end of my garden was sodden there were 3 little egrets prodding about. Plenty of other fields by the river were flooded so ideal for egrets.
Actually Mark the egret was common throughout Western Europe until the 19th century – it was hunted to extinction in many countries including the UK – it’s plumes were in high demand for the production of hats.
It’s gradual spread is most likely attributable to conservation measures introduced in the 1950s in its core survival area around the Northern Mediterranean.
No, no, no; you have missed the point. This is a part of the Global Warming Narrative–EVERYTHING is the result of climate change, unless we are talking about DEI issues, in which case EVERYTHING is racist.
In my fine 1969 Readers Digest Book of British Birds the Black winged stilt comes under the heading of Visiters from south west Europe and Asia and is described thus,
Rare vagrant,mainly to south east england in spring and autumn. Bred in Nottinghamshire in 1945 apparently although one wonders who noticed that with everything else going on that year!
Did the Readers Digest Book of British Birds capitalize “Black?”
It did, both in the index and in the decription on page 273, why is that a problem?
Capitalizing “black” became de rigueur in the US after the George Floyd riots in 2020. I thought it odd to see in a 1969 reference.
Ooo, you learn something every day!
Thank you for that clarification, I was also at school then but obviously wasn’t listening!
@Gamecock I was at school just before that book was being published. I was taught that names were capitalised, so Black Winged Stilt but black car.
Nothing odd about it in written British English, not sure about other versions though
Don’t think so, Ben. Stilt is not a proper noun.
The war itself by 1945 may have been a reason for birds to avoid parts of Europe, when you think of the scale of explosions and disruption.
Similar to above comment, from wiki.
” In Europe, the black-winged stilt is a regular spring overshoot vagrant north of its normal range, occasionally remaining to breed in northern European countries. Pairs successfully bred in Britain in 1987, and after a 27-year hiatus there were two instances of successful breeding in Southern England in 2014. 13 young were fledged in southern England in 2017. Four chicks were successfully fledged in northern England in 2022; this is believed to be the most northerly breeding success for the black-winged stilt.”
No doubt once all the restored wetlands are full of mosquitoes, they’ll blame climate change when malaria becomes endemic with the next mass migration of infected people from some warzone or other also blamed on climate change.
Yet again BBC displaying its obsession with non-existent climate change- let alone climate emergency!
Cordially
Ian Harris
PO21 1HW
There is evidence that Egrets bred here before the little ice age, they were hunted to extinction for their plumage. They are just returning to old haunts.
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/egrets-the-birds-that-inspired-the-creation-of-the-rspb-229490
Since when has Spain been in Africa? (Apart from two places that actually are part of Spain, but are physically located in what would be Morocco if they removed the passport, visa and customs controls).
Have any of these “climate” fanatics ever been to an actually “hot” country? Such as most of Africa and the Middle East.
So, the “Black-Winged Stilt”.
Might be tasty!
Before the BBC gets too worried about an African birdie that wears white Y-fronts over it’s red trousers and occasionally pops up here, they should be concerned for it’s very own Chief Climate Liar.
After all, with the intense heat and lack of rain we’ve had in July, there has to be a risk (nay, hope) that ‘Tin’tIn LowRat might unfortunately be subject to “spontaneous human combustion”.
I’m an old cranky guy. But were that to happen whilst I was passing, my bladder control is WAY too strong for me to be able to assist him.
See the info here including CAPS and the range map. Nice photos.
https://ebird.org/species/bkwsti?siteLanguage=en_AU
So a literal handful come north whilst the vast majority do not, and that proves climate change? The rest are too stubborn?
Basing claims on what are clearly exceptions is the height of stupidity.
Not stubborn at all. Just deniers!
As is the case with records ‘proving’ climate change.
I should add that any warming in Spain or elsewhere is only seen in averages. Birds can’t calculate averages. They will not notice that there are few more days at 24 degrees and a few fewer at 23 degrees in a spring month.
When you spot one be sure and tell the BBC
5 unusual birds you may spot in your garden in summer
https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/things-to-do/23664451.5-unusual-birds-may-spot-garden-summer/
Hooray! The BBC Today programme this morning for the first time in living memory ….. actually asked a relevant question about climate Change! Extraordinary. The subject was the “Wild Fires” in Rhodes. Having earlier in the programme tried to attribute the fires to Climate Change, including an apparent affirmation with that view in an interview with Andrew Mitchell MP Minister of State in the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, who when asked if this was a wake up call, replied absolutely, and tried to associate it with the ULEZ Zones and the stopping of sales of Petrol and Diesel cars in 2030. Mitchell also stated that the Government’s main objective was to reduce inflation. The opportunity to ask a good question there was missed, ie; “Do you think the £1.4 Trillion additional cost of Net Zero, only recently calculated by the OBR, that is £51,000 extra for every one of the 27 million households in the UK, helps with inflation?”
However then at 8.45am the Greek Minister for Building and Construction Chariton Kuscourous was interviewed by Justin, who actually asked the risky question “How do you think the fires are caused?” Kuscourous replied that they were started by “maniacs who want to hurt people”. This admission, that arsonists are responsible, fairly obvious to most of us, was not repeated on the later BBC News bulletins. Back to normal business at the BBC then, failing to fully inform, and continuing to mislead the Public as usual ….
I recently visited the Wildfowl and wetlands trust site at Slimbridge. We ran into a bunch of twitchers who were very excited to see a pair of these birds visiting the site. they told my family and I that these birds had not been seen for around 17 years. The same birds were also one of the reasons that the founder, Sir Peter Markham-Scott, set up the WWT Slimbridge site in the first place back in 1946.
Seems to me I have read this one before. Some guy named Darwin in a boat named after a dog studied finches on a remote island out somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Some idea about natural selection, adaptation, and survival of the fittest? Darwin would have done well with his own “reality TV show.”
13degrees on my patio this morning. Just sayin’