Home » Blog » Are gamebirds taking songbirds food?

Are gamebirds taking songbirds food?

Posted by admin - May 12, 2011

ACT has been emailed by a lady who began research recently after being horrified to find a Larsen trap. 

Jenny writes: The number of pheasants I see on my walks far outnumbers any other bird apart from the seagull. The number of road kills I see are mostly pheasants with a few foxes interspersed. Does that not say that pheasants are overpopulating the countryside? And they are not even indigenous to this country. It makes me mad.

I have briefly also looked up pheasants, skylarks and song thrushes to see what they eat. And it seems to me that pheasants are taking away the natural food source of songbirds.

Jenny is quite correct, pheasants will eat just about everything a songbird will eat.

During our investigations we have found fewer songbirds on shooting estates and perhaps this is one of the factors. With 40 million alien species gamebirds competing for food with our native songbirds, it is hardly surprising they are struggling.

Tags: Gamebirds, Songbirds


Fiona on May 19, 2011, 22:00:33
shooting estates account for the vast majority of lifeless WILDERSCAPES that we have in the highlands of scotland. On a grouse moore - burnt every few years to encourage heather growth - not even a rowan tree (the hardiest) will be found surviving. Nothing is allowed to grow except heather, blaeberry, maybe a wee bit moss or phytoplankton. Certainly not the natural flora, which supports the natural fauna.
Vast (HUGE VAST - way bigger than your cities in England) areas of the highlands are denuded atrocities - criss crossed with scorch marks where heather - and all indigenous plant species (never mind the anmimal species that would survive off them) - have been burnt and destroyed - oh yes to encourage the survival or pheasants / grouse for shooting purposes.
The rich? Trumper McQueeniebags? Aye right.
No guns here - I hate guns so much.

Posts closed