Climate change denying Trolls are still at it despite the scientific consensus

Each morning I read the online version of The Guardian (UK equivalent of the Washington Post and France's Le Monde)) and The Times,  to get a balanced view of the world.

Photo: Patrick Hendry, Unsplash

Today's Times ran a  report by the United Nations on global greenhouse gas emissions and how they have reached a record high. Our global annual output of greenhouse gases is 53.5 bn tonnes and is set to be 59 bn tonnes by 2030. The "Paris Agreement" was for 40bn tonnes by 2030 to limit global warming  to 2C and avoid catastrophic climate change.

At the end of the piece there was an unbroken run of 12 comments all denying the report's findings,  claiming that climate change is a myth or attacking the integrity of the journalist who wrote it. This is classic climate change denial strategy as begun by ExxonMobil in the early 70s and modelled on the tobacco industry attempts to keep us smoking; despite lung cancer.

The primary tactic of environmental scepticism is........ "deny the evidence and deny the environmental problem"....... Then the deniers manufacture uncertainty by calling on us not to rush to judgement by claiming that more facts are needed.

Have a look at today's Times article then read the comments below it and judge for yourself, does it look like  organised scepticism of Troll factories supported by individual  contrarians who may be afraid,  angry or just scientifically illiterate.

UNDP Global Outlook Report 2019

I can't give you a link to the Times article because there is a paywall around their website, you'll have to buy a copy I'm afraid.

For an appraisal of the history and denial strategy of contrarians have a look at this link....

How the fossil fuel industry blocks climate change action.

The comments in the Times are true to form

• It's not true, it's a myth
• The evidence is widely disputed
• This is a conspiracy
• The journalist lacks integrity he / she is just recycling PR material

It has to be mostly paid for Trolls writing this , who else would spend their day churning out the same old stuff?  Their output falls into three categories:

It's not just "big oil" coal mining is still expanding

Lying
Generally you can find "outright denial" or conscious denial in the face of the facts or events, this is lying (See; D. Trump).

Bullshit
Instead of outright denial, the denier can choose to interpret the facts of climate change  in order to distract. For example the accumulation of Co2 in the atmosphere is due to rising temperatures. not vice versa. 

Deceit
Deniers can accept the facts of climate change then proceed to present them as something else altogether by minimising or dismissing the need to act when the facts say that we should. Most of us are guilty.

For example, I take the train on European journeys instead of flying and kid myself that I am doing my bit.  The emergence of Extinction Rebellion has made more of us think about our response to climate change, self-deceit is becoming increasingly untenable in the face of a moral imperative.   

Travels with a donkey......La Route Stevenson

Sunrise over the Morven Peninsula 15/11/19

It's the 14th November and already this month I have filled the water butt with a hosepipe for the livestock  three times.  It's been unusually  dry for three weeks,  at a time when we are normally deluged., the sun is shining in a cloudless sky and it's 4 degrees outside.

Thoughts turn to summer 2020, France and a walking holiday but this time with a difference.....I want to take donkey.
A long walk in the Pyrenees without a donkey

Robert Louis Stevenson is  perhaps most famous for his novels Treasure Island and Kidnapped. He may be less well known as a pioneer travel and outdoor writer. "Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes", written in 1879 was one of his first outdoor books, an account of his 120 mile walk with the donkey Modestine from Le Puy to St. Jean du Gard through the Cevennes.

Modestine was his essential pack animal because he didn't travel light his heavy extra large sleeping

RLS

bag was made of sheepskins, he took wine, brandy, a leg of mutton and a revolver he really needed a donkey. We don't really need one, we travel light and unarmed, overnight baggage can go by courier van to the next stopover. I just like the idea of an asinine companion.

RLS cursed Modestine roundly every day and  he goaded her with a stick; she was too slow and stubborn, he didn't realise that she was on heat for at least part of the time. In 2020 a hired donkey should, I hope be more amenable as long as the donkey driver follows some basic rules. Don't overload her, don't creep up on her from behind especially when she is eating corn, don't try to stroke her face her shoulder or neck are are preferable.

At the end of their trek in St. Jean du Gard RLS was sad to see her go when he sold her and described her thus....

She was patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small.

Her faults were those of her age and sex; her virtues were her own.

My walking companion an experienced horsewoman is more practical than me and thinks that a donkey may be more trouble than it's worth. I'll have to work on this.

"The Route Stevenson" the GR 7 follows Stevenson's route closely and the original book, only 176 pages in the copy that I have , could be used as a guide but my map reading is never brilliant so I've bought the french Topo Guide, it's detailed and the maps are excellent...... we'll take both!

 While planning I also have to bear in mind that I am now a "crumbly" (over 75 years) and I think we should do one half in the early summer and if we do the second half... in the autumn. The stages will be shorter than those of the GR7, the accommodation comfortable and the baggage goes by van.  This is as a result of my biting off more than I could chew on the GR10 in 2018.

The best Gites d'Etapes are fine but mountain huts are out and in some places hotels and inns will be used. It has taken me a rather long time to realise that  it's worth paying for a good bed with en-suite bathroom. Food is normally excellent everywhere except in mountain huts.
A summer in the Pyrenees

Alpine hut etiquette

Environmental ethics in the age of fake news, oligarchy and moral relativism

Thirty years ago when The United States lead the world in the field of environmental ethics I had the opportunity to do a Masters degree in "Environmental Values".

Now with the world turned upside down and the USA  having won the race to the bottom in  valuing the environment, I wonder if it was worth the effort.

Back in 1989 I was a working farm manager with a science degree and an interest in the environment. It seemed to me that we knew the technical solutions to many of our environmental problems and that these problems were the unforeseen side effects of new technology, technologies which had been used without sufficient precaution. Studying environmental values might lead me to understand why we were so careless with the natural world. I was still rather naive and idealistic in my forties.

My first seminar in a philosophy department was a shock. The vocabulary often required resort to a dictionary, there were long and pregnant silences while people thought about the questions posed. It was a strange world, far from a science tutorial where we mainly dissected and critiqued scientific papers in front of the Prof. Gradually I got the idea, which was to discuss how the various theories  of ethics could and might be applied to the natural world.

First we had to decide if non-humans; animals, ecosystems, mountains rivers etc could actually be moral subjects because to be a moral subject you had to have intrinsic value and only humans could have intrinsic value according to the 18th century Scots philosopher and sceptic David Hume

We discussed the application of utilitarianism to the environment and it's underpinning of 20th century environment policy, animal welfare and even animal rights. Then Kant and, " The Golden Rule" which in it's crudest terms says you ought to do as you would be done unto. More up to date was  the american philosopher John Rawls and his notion of the ," Veil of ignorance"; he argued that policy ought to be made by policymakers assuming that they were completely ignorant of their own position, socially, culturally and financially in order to be completely fair.

What appealed to me most was , The Land Ethic",  first outlined by Aldo Leopold  in his 1949 collection of essays, A Sand County Almanac". Leopold appealed to me probably because he was a scientist, manager and wonderful writer. His ethos was ecologically based, he rejected the human centred approach of utilitarianism and argued that we need a new relationship with land, animals, plants and ecosystems. The real philosophers concentrated on arguing that there was no real philosophical foundation to his ethic it was basically romantic ecology. I think that's why it appealed to me and the US National Park Service who underpinned their management for three decades with Leopold's ethic.

At the end of two years studying I felt that some of my questions had been answered but far more had been raised.  The important thing is that we were discussing our values and the environment and how we might save and preserve ecosystems, species, rivers and mountains.

I can't imagine that happening in today's White House or No. 10 Downing Street where politicians and the people who fund them are taking us to "hell in a handcart" . As for the Masters course, it's long gone.

Good news on global warming and climate change.... if we plant more trees!

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, gave us some good news in  the July edition of it's journal, Science.

Global mapping of the earth's tree growing potential has shown  we could restore 4.4 billion hectares  (10.6 billion acres) of woodland worldwide, outside of existing forests and agricultural land. The global tree restoration potential, Bastin et.al., Science, 365, No. 6448, pp. 76-79

This would increase the global forest area by more than 25 per cent storing over 200 giga tonnes of carbon over it's lifetime and 25 percent of  the current pool of atmospheric carbon.  Read the abstract here

A remnant of the Caledonian Pine Forest

In Scotland , in 2017, we had a review of our national forest strategy 2019 - 2029. About 18 per cent of our land area is covered by trees  and a further 12 per cent is capable of growing trees without  taking any prime farmland. This compares with an average  37 per cent tree cover in the countries of the European Union .

The Scottish government has set a planting target of 15,000 ha per annum until 2024/25. Two thirds of our forests are privately owned  and one third is owned by the government through Forestry Scotland formerly the Forestry Commission. Scotland's Forestry Strategy 2019 -2029

The Scottish "Crofting Counties"  cover some 750,000 hectares of land, crofts are smallholdings where the farming family earns most of the household income off the croft and many of them would welcome the opportunity to plant trees.

 It costs around £5,000 per hectare to fence, plant and establish trees, large landowners have the resources to do this and at the end of the day are presented with a valuable capital asset because the whole cost is grant aided by the taxpayer. It is not the capital cost itself that deters Crofters from planting it is their lack of capital to pay for the project over two or three years until the grant is paid. they cannot afford to do it.

If the Scottish government are serious about their ambitious planting targets they need to introduce bridging loans for smaller forestry projects. Once the trees are fenced and planted the loan would be recovered from the grant. Investment in trees would no longer be only available to the wealthy as socialism for rich landowners.

Scotland: Too many deer... too few trees

Deer fencing  comprises up to 50% of the cost of tree establishment, without fencing the trees are rapidly destroyed by marauding deer, we have an estimated 350 - 400,000 red deer in the highlands. Without them or with much lower numbers tree planting would be much cheaper and natural regeneration possible in many areas.

NB.
Please bear in mind that this report in the journal Science is based on real science using rigorous methodology, peer review and the results published in a prestigious journal of international standing.

It is not the deluded Twitter ramblings of a climate change denying politician or the propaganda of a so called, "think tank" paid for by business corporations or oligarchs ( you know who they are).

The Roadkill Cafe and the Field guide to flattened fauna

In February I wrote about the now annual dinner of our old guys expedition group, "Crispy Grey Squirrel at the Roadkill Cafe".  The squirrels I  had in the freezer have gone along with the pheasants, I inadvertently switched off the freezer while working in the workshop.  Now with only three weeks to go I need replacements urgently.

Many years ago I discovered a unique field guide in the Minneapolis airport bookshop. .....Flattened Fauna, A field guide to common animals of roads, streets and highways.

The author describes 36 reptile, avian and mammal remains after compression, mainly by really big trucks. He he says that the animals are most sincerely dead, so dead that even the flies have lost interest.

Grey squirrels are very flat except for the long bushy tail which is usually the only identifying characteristic as it waves in the slipstream of passing trucks so it's not really suitable for cooking.

I won't be scouring the roads of Northumberland ( we don't have grey squirrels here) and hope that my squirrel trapping friends can  supply a fresher non flattened, humanely despatched corpse.


 

Maurice le coq peut chanter maintenant ! ......Country people and their poultry have won a landmark case in France.

Vive Maurice!

In France's Ile-d'Oleron a tribunal and a judge have decided that Maurice the cockerel can continue to sing.

Maurice has become a symbol of the resistance of country people to gentrification of rural areas by  the "neoruraux" incomer retirees and second home owners from urban France.

Earlier this year a neighbour of Mme. Corrinne Fesseau complained to the authorities that her cockerel, "Maurice" was a nuisance because his early morning crowing disturbed the peace of the village.

Mme. Fesseau defended Maurice on the grounds that in French law it would be necessary to prove that Maurice was a nuisance and this was not done. The villagers and neighbours enjoyed Maurice's morning song and he received letters of support from all over France. Further she saw this as an attack on the rural way of life in France. What would be next? church bells? frogs?

Here in Kilchoan I have five cockerels who all sing in the morning and there have been no complaints but in rural southern England where areas such as the Cotswolds have been taken over by wealthy incomers it is against the law to keep a cockerel. This is further evidence of the English countryside rapidly becoming a large suburban park and luxury housing complex.

Vive la France!......... Vive Maurice!. For a full report of the proceedings see todays Le Monde

19/06/20    Maurice est morts

The Guardian newspaper announced today that Maurice, aged 6 years has died of Coryza a respiratory infection of poultry  .https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/19/maurice-the-noisey-french-rooster-dies-aged-six 

The UK and the EU after Brexit......... There's a simple solution to every human problem; it's neat, plausible and wrong. H.L.Mencken.

Last week 84 %  of this blog's readers lived in the USA, I know that thanks to Google, but I don't know why? you are obviously intelligent and discerning people so....

I thought that you might find it useful to have a brief explanation of our current political shambles in the UK and consequences of our leaving the European Union (EU) without an agreement on future arrangements between ourselves and our biggest trading partner.

While you are reading bear in mind my favourite aphorism of the late, great american H.L.Mencken.

" There's a simple solution to every human problem

it's neat, plausible and wrong"

The simple solution to the current UK problem of leaving the EU favoured by the loony right of the Conservative party ( mainly angry old men) and the even loonier, authoritarian English nationalist Brexit party is to leave the EU without any agreement on trade, the EU border between Ireland and  N. Ireland and freedom of movement. A complex problem but for Johnson there's a simple solution.... just walk away and all will be well.

Our current UK Prime Minister ( Alexander Boris Pfefell Johnson) is well known to be incompetent, lazy and mendacious from his early career as a journalist and his time as Mayor of London, our own "Mini Trump". It is obvious that he is aiming to take us out of the EU without a deal despite the awful economic consequences.

Johnson's wealthy backers see opportunities for "disaster capitalism" during the ensuing chaos . In the longer term their aim is to turn the UK into a low wage, low tax offshore  haven for money laundering and tax avoidance with minimal regulation of financial services and the environment.

All will not be well as many of our Members of Parliament who are meeting today to try to stop the , No Deal Brexit know. Thay have to do this before Johnson shuts down parliament on 14th September.

Because if we leave without a deal on October 31st........

•  From November 1st we will be treated as a, " third country". A vast range of checks and tariffs will be applied to our exports to the EU our biggest customer taking 46 % of our exports. Trade will immediately become more complicated, costly and difficult especially for smaller businesses. Farmers and fishermen will be totally screwed.
• Air and road transport will be disrupted, perhaps not immediately because the EU have put in place some temporary mitigation procedures. The UK does not appear to have done anything.
• We rely heavily on immigration from Europe to staff hospitals, care homes, the hospitality industry and agriculture. Employers will have to apply complex new rules which have not yet been decided.
• The UK will lose access to information and data from Europol, the Schengen visa system and the European arrest warrant system....... new opportunities for criminals however.
• Ireland will remain an EU member. The UK has a land border between N. Ireland and the Republic of Ireland so checks and tariffs will be applied at the border.  the ~~UK government (Johnson) has said this will not happen there will be no hard border which is against World Trade Organisation rules. 

I do have a dog in this fight as you may have realised. I am a Scot, living in Scotland where 62% of the population voted to remain in the EU at the referendum in 2016 . In this of course, we are ruled by our political masters ,in London.



Postscript, 13/09/2019

My friend Derek sent me a comment today.,,,,,, Derek doesn't use Google, he's a one man stand against their bid for world domination! His comment is another quote by H.L.Mencken in his political commentary, "On politics, A carnival of bunkum".

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents more and more closely the soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day the plain folks of this land will reach their heart's desire at last the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

This doesn't just apply to the White House of course, the quotation applies equally to No. 10 Downing Street .

NB
If you have nothing better to do:-

Here's a link to authoritarian nationalism

The perfect bullshit shitstorm and something to help you deal with it.

"Bullshit" and it's synonym "bollocks" are common English expletives regularly used in response to  nonsensical or misleading statements which have no concern for reality or the truth.

Next week we in the UK will have a new Prime Minister, Alexander Boris Pfeffel Johnson, who has built his whole career in journalism and the pursuit of political power on bullshit. If bullshit was an Olympic event Johnson would win silver, we all know who would win gold, after a photo finish. If you want to know more about Johnson go to this link in today's Observer newspaper. The 10 ages of Boris Johnston

Why am I concerned about bullshit? If you read my previous post you see that those who do not want action on climate change have made strategic use of bullshit to refute the claims of climate scientists with great success over the last 30 years and now we are about to be confronted by a shitstorm of bullshit once Johnston is in office and I want to be able to refute it.Oligarchs, think tanks and global warming

If I am honest I only tell you what I believe to be true. If I tell you an outright lie I am aware of the truth but have chosen to ignore it. The Bullshitter  however isn't at all concerned about the truth or facts, he doesn't care because he only wants to persuade you to accept his point of view. And sometimes to entertain you because comedians are thought to be harmless. He's a snake oil salesman.

When I Googled bullshit  I discovered a really useful bullshit refutation toolkit. Calling Bullshit.
It discusses the principles and philosophy of bullshit, how to spot it in the misuse of correlation, the making of unfair comparisons, deliberate misuse of statistics, dodgy graphs and fake news stories.

That's it folks..... it's up to you now to look at the, "Calling Bullshit" website by following the link above and equip yourself to identify and deal with bullshit in all of it's many forms.

PS
Its now Friday 26th July 2019,  Johnson has been elected Prime Minister by a caucus of 90,000 Conservative Party members. We have 46.8 million people registered to vote in the UK. So he was chosen by 0.0019 % of the electorate. If this happened in Africa we would be described as a "failed state".

Oligarchs, think tanks, marketing and global warming

Somewhere near you?

Sixty five years ago I had my first school chemistry lesson  with, "Doggy Collins"  a scary old Welshman. I clearly remember two topics that are relevant today, the gases comprising the earth's atmosphere and the, "scientific method".

The air we breathed then contained approximately 300 ppm of carbon dioxide it now contains 400 ppm, a 25 per cent increase in 65 years. This is a scientific fact, in other words there is a very strong probability that it is true. Doggy's scientific method involved three steps;

• Observe the situation
• Formulate a hypothesis 
• Test your hypothesis by experimentation 

I should add a fourth....... present your methods, results, discussion and conclusions to the scientific community to seek consensus by peer review.

Scientific consensus about climate change has strengthened considerably since 1990, ninety seven per cent of published climate scientists  now agree that climate change is being driven by human activity ( Anthropogenic Global Warming).

Meanwhile there is a vociferous minority, in the USA  and UK denying that this is the case. They  are presumably happy to accept scientific consensus if it benefits their health or wealth but not if it means radical lifestyle change and inconvenience. People on every continent are experiencing the effects of climate change; from wildfires in California, to drought in Somalia and melting ice at the poles.

Closer to home; in the 1950s Crofters in this village made hay and grew oats, the climate was good enough at the appropriate time to make hay and harvest oats. Now it could not be done, the summers are too wet for haymaking and September too wet for harvesting cereals. Our annual rainfall in the W. Highlands has increased by 45 per cent in the last 20 years. We don't have significantly more wet days but when it does rain the rainfall is much heavier. 

Who are the deniers?....... and why do they do it?

In the USA and the UK anthropogenic global warming denial is generated and lead by right wing  think tanks and media funded by oligarchs and business corporations who have a vested interest in avoiding any mediation, it would lower their income and increase their costs. So, the "think tanks" churn out misinformation ( fake news) to create doubt about the science. This benefits their owners by decreasing support for mediation measures. The myths and misinformation are readily adopted by populist right wing politicians..... you know who they are!

The think tanks, right wing media and their supporters use the same tactics that gave us consumerism.... marketing!. They influence public support by casting doubt on the consensus among scientists. In the UK it has been found that only 11% of voters believed that the scientific consensus was 90% or more....... very effective marketing.  The gap generated between the public perception of scientific consensus and it's reality has delayed effective action to mitigate climate change.

If you are part of the consensus and recognise the global climate crisis you can outwit the  deniers by countering myths and misinformation, but more effectively by inoculating people against new myths......... explain how science works!  here is some ammunition  .....The effects of climate change NASA

Members of Parliament debate the potential extinction of red squirrels

At the end of February the UK experienced it's hottest ever winter day. On the same day there was a debate in Parliament on the climate change emergency.

I counted 35  of our 650 MPs in the photograph of the debating chamber. The other 625 were probably too busy having lunch with lobbyists or filling in their expense claims; the best part of their week.
Westminster Debate on Climate Change, The Guardian.

Earlier this week there was a briefing for MPs on the potential extinction of Red Squirrels in England, I can't find out how many attended but you can find a transcript of the debate on line at;  Debate on potential red squirrel extinction . Transcript of debate on potential red squirrel extinction

In the one and a half hours available there were over thirty contributions from the politicians present. They concluded that the threat to our iconic red squirrel population from the invasive, alien greys must be removed.

Invasive alien grey squirrel

If you write a blog,  each day you get a summary of how many people have read posts in the last 24 hours and which posts they have read. Since the first of three posts about the red squirrels in the Coquet Valley and their potential extinction was written in October last year; someone, somewhere in the world has read about them every day.

It seems that people find it easier to identify and engage  with, small, furry, bushy tailed little mammals and their plight than with the human existential problem of climate change. Politicians certainly do.

For a really accurate, concise and readable account of the grey squirrel problem and possible solutions you can read the MPs briefing paper yourself.Briefing paper on the extinction threat to red squirrels

Wild flowers, insects and birds return to traditionally managed grassland

Colourful pre-industrial diversity surrounded by deep green desert

Industrialised agriculture in the UK began after WW2, until then we had traditional low input, low output farming, a time when farmers didn't have to keep accounts or pay income tax, yields were low, machines were powered by horses, weeds were removed with a hoe and wildlife generally flourished.

My childhood saw the horses replaced by tractors ( small grey ones mostly with motor car engines), combine harvesters replaced binders and threshers, this "mechanisation"  led to loss of habitat and enabled intensification. Then the widespread adoption of

High energy input........ no diversity

fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and intensive use of nitrogen fertiliser on grass and arable crops in the late 60's led to widespread loss of birds, insects and flowers.

Even in the remoter livestock farming areas of the north and west intensification has resulted in a landscape of dark green fields ( because of high nitrogen fertiliser use)..... a deep green desert dominated by grass, cow parsley, stinging nettles and low diversity.

Low energy input .......... high diversity

High diversity needs low soil fertility. When fertilisers are applied the more vigorous crop species and weeds out compete everything else..... result ......... loss of species.

But this week, in the Coquet Valley in North Northumberland we visited an island of colourful diversity in the sea of green..... Burradon Windyside Farm near Thropton. Here  Kevin Wharf has transformed what were once intensively managed barley fields into floristically rich meadows.



The change has been achieved quickly and effectively by using traditional grazing management, haymaking and broadcasting wild flower seeds. Sheep graze the fields during and immediately after lambing in the Spring. The fields are then shut up until late June  early July when a small scale seed harvester collects the flower seed then this is followed by making hay.

Why is this interesting?................. well you may have noticed that the UK is about to commit economic suicide by leaving the European Union. We farmers and Crofters are unlikely to get the level of subsidy enjoyed by farmers in member countries but our Minister for the environment has promised enhanced incentives for biodiversity creation and sustainable farming.  Kevin has shown how this could be done.

No!......  I don't believe the promises of politicians ......... But!..........along with climate change they are going to have to take biodiversity loss seriously and it might just happen.

Hen egg laying rituals and broken eggs

The goats don't seem to mind the squatters

 My brown egg laying hybrid hens lay an egg a day at the moment, there's over 14 hrs of daylight and it's warmer. So each day they go looking for a nest site for an hour or so then end up in the one they used yesterday.

Research shows that hens learn the best places to nest by mimicry. In this case the later laying pullets saw those that started to lay earlier using the hay racks and decided to use them themselves even if very over crowded.

This pre-laying behaviour can last for up to a couple of hours. Then having selected the nest they settle in to the nesting material and squirm about to make a comfortable bowl shape in the hay. The problem with this site is that the eggs sometimes roll through the bars and break.

I did make a lid to keep them out but they were so frustrated I relented and let them in again. I just have to collect the eggs quickly.

It's the broody season....... time to spend three weeks sitting on eggs in a dark box

Day 2 of sitting on the nest and not moving.... definitely broody!

It's the end of May....... the start of the "broody" season....   Hens now want to sit on a clutch of eggs and hatch them. The don't all go "broody" or start "clocking" some are keener than others but it can become contagious. First sign that one of your hens is clocking is that you are likely to find her sitting on the nest over a few eggs or no eggs at all at night when you lock up.

When you put your hand under her she stays there, pecks your hand and / or protests  by squawking. Looking down on the clocker she looks flattened and spread out over the nest, not quite as flat as roadkill.

If you want her to hatch a clutch of eggs you will need to move her out of the hen house nest box into a purpose made sitting box or even a large cardboard box in a shed safe from predators. Move your hen gently, at night when she is a bit dozy and place her in the sitting box with a few dummy eggs for 24 rs to see if she is going to sit tight.

Keep the eggs to be hatched in the kitchen for 24 hrs to gently warm them. 10 or 12 eggs for a heavy breed hen, then gently replace the dummy eggs after dark. Next morning she should still be sitting scatter some grain on the ground in front of her and make sure there is water available. She will probably not leave the nest for a day or two, this is normal, when she does it will be for 10 or 15 minutes to eat, drink and dump.

Time off.....20 minutes each day

Best to feed her whole grain this keeps the excrement firm, layers pellets will make her a bit skittery. Skitter is an agricultural term for diarrhoea. After 20 to 21 days you should have eight or nine chicks from your setting of 12 eggs. Clockers are cheaper than incubators, more reliable and you don't need a brooder the old hen will look after them.

Goats are friendly, charming and intelligent..... don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Humans domesticated by goats 11,000 years ago 

Estimates vary but it seems that humans were first domesticated by goats between eight thousand and eleven thousand years ago in the mountains of Iran. Being sociable, adaptable, intelligent and able to eat almost anything humans were an ideal subject for domestication and have been captivated by goats ever since.

Of course the goats had to learn to handle dogs because they were the very first wild animals to take over human homes ( caves) which were warm, dry and littered with nourishing kitchen scraps. They handle dogs by never turning their backs on them and head butting to keep control. This means that the goats can take their humans  and dogs for country walks and picnics  on fine days as above.

Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton noticed that domesticated animals were only a limited number of species with certain behavioural traits making them suitable for domestication; they should be sociable (herding), the young should bond quickly and strongly with their parent and should be flexible in their dietary requirements. Galton's requirements for domestication.

Shetland ducks....... a rare breed and slightly confused I hope.

I should know better but last month I slipped half a dozen fertile duck eggs under a bantam hen with little hope of any hatching after the long, rough journey by mail from Shetland.

Then, one morning ten days ago there were four black and yellow ducklings under a fiercely protective hen. In the last ten days they seem to have increased in size five-fold on a diet of chick crumbs and fresh grass.

Ten day old Shetland ducks and surrogate mother

I should know better because ducks have always been a lot of trouble, they make a mess around the steading with a mixture of water, mud and excrement everywhere you walk, they have to be herded into their nighttime accommodation safe from mink, pine martens and foxes but on the plus side they do lay lots of eggs that make the best sponge cakes, they eat snails ( intermediate host of liver fluke) and are real characters.

Hopefully these ducklings will be confused by their hen mother, adopt her behaviour, think they are hens and follow her inside at dusk even after she has lost interest in them.

10 day old ducks now think they are hens, emerging from the hen house

Why Shetland ducks? They are a tough, hardy and productive rare breed so it's worth putting in some effort to keep them going..... you never know...... there may be a need for the genes of tough hardy little ducks that lay as many eggs as Khaki Campbells in the future.

For more information on Shetland ducks  see... Rare Breeds Survival Trust

Another generation of goats and goat keepers.

I have worked with all types of farm animals  during the last 60 years and the most attractive are goats, they  are intelligent, clean, efficient milk producers, small, friendly, affectionate and safe around small children.  Milking twice a day got too much for me in my seventies so the three milkers were re-homed. Now the next generation are keen to keep them.

My daughter has just bought a two year  old Toggenburg x British Toggenburg goatling for mating this Autumn and milking next Spring. Goats do need companions but until we find another kid in late Spring this one will have to make do with the horse, Arran.

The work can be minimised by once a day milking .Kids are separated from their mother at night but can still see and nuzzle her through the bars of the pen. Mother is then milked in the morning and the kids can suckle her all day out on the hill. Milking is easier and so is the kid rearing.

There should be just enough milk for the family's day to day needs and occasional cheese making and of course the grand children grow up with a sense of responsibility for their animals. Most importantly we now have three experienced volunteer adult relief milkers for occasional weekends and holidays.

A very rough guide to Alpine mountain hut etiquette in France

Twenty years ago we were staying in a Canadian Alpine Club hut in the Rocky Mountains, the occupants were international but all European. The log hut was situated in a alpine meadow, there were vast supplies of firewood for the stove, rocking chairs and rough hewn tables, it was perfect. Then came a knock at the door as we were eating, the knockers were Canadian," what is this place?" they wanted to know. They didn't know about this amazing resource although it was in their own country and perhaps you aren't aware of what is available on our European doorstep.

Pyrenean hut

French mountain huts are open to all not just grizzled, ultra hard core mountaineers, families and children are welcome. You could have some spectacular encounters with wild nature, congenial company and walking adventures.

Most French huts are operational from June to September and demand is high so book ahead.  Phone the Guardian at your chosen hut, it is appreciated.

Guardians can be grannies with their grand children, fit young people or hard bitten veterans of this business who have seen everything, be polite, speak French. Pay cash, be aware; "la carte bleu n'est pas toujours acceptee !" Take your boots off at the door, wear hut shoes or the Crocs that are provided.

You will be allotted a sleeping space with mattress, pillow and blanket in a dormitory, carry your own sheet sleeping bag. Even over 2,000 m in the Pyrenees you won't need a sleeping bag. If you are old and need to inspect the loos at night ask for a space near the door, you don't want to disturb the others. You might find flushing toilets indoors near the dormitory or you may need to go outside to find hole in the floor that you squat over, it varies. Get used to shaving in the dark with cold water or grow a beard.

There is a three course meal at 7.00 pm; soup, main,regional cheese Angel Delight. Although France is the home of great cuisine most guardians in the Pyrenees use a Russian soup recipe from the Gulag system and I remember Angel Delight from the 50's but thought it had been banned in the UN Declaration on Human Rights, apparently not. Order your wine before the meal.

You will meet a lot of cows, don't be afraid , talk to them..."bonjour madame, ca va bien?" it works every time.

Travel as light as possible these are mountain huts! For a good night's sleep take ear plugs, headlamp, sheet sleeping bag and toilet kit. Don't expect a cell phone signal, wi-fi, Instagram, TV or lighting after 10 pm. Take your garbage away with you.

In France the refuges are referred colloquially to as " Les Refuges CAFF"  the CAF is the Club Alpin Francais , there's lots more information on the web.

You don't have to stay overnight. In the Alps you can walk up or in some cases take a ski lift to a refuge for a very nice lunch and congenial company.

Ghostly apparition or pine marten..... can you help to identify this animal?

These blog posts flit between North Northumberland and Kilchoan. Today it's a possible pine marten sighting .  Elliot the Red Squirrel Group trapper and ecologist has a blurred image on one of his camera traps, it might just be a pine marten.

Two years ago my friend Bob Burston saw a pine marten at the side of the road by the wood. He's a witness of impeachable integrity, a retired Anglican clergyman. Then I found what might have been pine marten scat in the wood last Autumn. Elliot's image is small and blurred, you have to scrutinise the image carefully to find it. Here it is:

At the foot of the tree trunk on the right you can see a pair of eyes and ears

Here it is again slightly enlarged , what is it?

The ears are rather long and erect so it could be a fox, it's unlikely to be a cat and pine marten is definitely a possibility. The image at the top left is for reference and a fox cub below.

An encounter with elderly pines and black grouse

Some few thousands of years after the end of the last ice age (10,000 bp) a great wood extended across Scotland from the valleys of the Cairngorm plateau to glens of Lochaber in the west. The climate was warmer and drier, soils were better drained and less acid. Pine trees thrived.

Trees of many ages and open spaces

As the current inter-glacial period progressed precipitation increased, soils became more acid and peat began to form. The pines retreated, neolithic farmers used fire and stone then iron axes to clear the forest. More recently two world wars took more of the pines.

Today we have about ninety remnants of the great wood scattered from Glen Nevis and Ardgour in the west to Glen Tanar in the eastern Cairngorms. Among the biggest and the best remnants are Rothiemurchus and Abernethy where I've been today. This a favourite walk of mine from Loch Morlich over the pass of Ryvoan to the valley of the river Spey it's an encounter with the, "Great Wood" it's trees, shrubs , birds and some of it's mammals, no wolves or lynx unfortunately.

Huge, gnarled ,elderly heavy limbed  "Granny Pines" 300 - 400 years old and their offspring of many ages predominate mixed with birch and alder in the wetter places. In the absence of sheep and with  deer control the forest seems to be self-sustaining, a microcosm of the Great Wood.

Loch an Uaine (The green loch)

Apart from this encounter with the old trees I had a second reason to visit. I wanted to see if a black grouse lekking site that I first discovered about twelve years ago was still in use.Black grouse are very loyal to these places.

The grass was short and green, beaten down and fertilised by the grouse. I found black body feathers in the longer grass to windward and grouse scat on the ground. The site is still in use between dusk and dawn.

Black grouse conservation in the Alps

Woodland free range eggs

The earliest ancestors of my hens were domesticated in S.E.Asia over 5,000 years ago, these Red Jungle fowl lived in the jungle undergrowth and woody scrub that provided food, shade and shelter. Watch your hens and you will see many behaviours that originated in woodland.

Woodland hens in the new plantation

Under summer sun and heat mine head straight for the hazel scrub on the hillside where they dust bathe, feed, socialise and occasionally roost. Despite the 5,000 years of domestication they still seem to prefer their ancestral habitat to climate controlled intensive housing. One tenet of the poultry welfare code is that they should be able to exhibit, "natural behaviour" access to woodland must surely provide for this; shelter, shade, food, water (my hens prefer to drink from puddles rather than metal or plastic drinkers).

In 2018 the last of my sheep were sold. They were becoming heavier and stronger as I got older and of course I could not see a profitable future for upland sheep after we leave the European Union. The hens stayed and this year there will be more of them. Some of the sheep pasture has already been planted with a mixture of native broad leaved species and Arran the highland pony grazes the in-bye field. Marketed as "Woodland Eggs" they must be even more attractive to visitors.

At the moment there is only tree cover from the hedgerow trees and hazel scrub, it will be some time before the former pasture becomes woodland, but there are environmental benefits; carbon sequestration, control of  water run off, increased biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

Pine martens kill and eat red squirrels too!

Many thanks to those of you who voted in support of the Coquetdale Red Squirrel Group funding bid with the AVIVA Community Fund ( 25/10/ 2018). Your votes got us through to the final but we failed to win the £10,000 needed.

Feedback from the AVIVA judging panel said that the project was innovative and well presented. However it was too short ( 6 months) there were concerns over sustainability and ability to measure the impact. The proposals did not impact people and community directly! This is fair enough it is a "Community Fund" after all and AVIVA kindly gave us a £500 consolation prize. What next?

It looks as if we need to learn about crowd funding and appeal directly to the public with social media as there is the possibility of an apprentice scheme.  the Cumbria Wildlife Trust have two apprentices currently working on red squirrel conservation; doing surveys, data handling etc., this may be a possibility for the future.

In the meantime you may be interested in more stuff on red squirrels and the impact of pine martens in habitats where they co-exist. I may be guilty of over optimism about the positive effect of pine marten predation on grey squirrel populations where reds and greys coexist.

Some recent research indicates that pine martens eat quite a lot of red squirrels can make up 50% of their winter diet in some areas.  see this link..........Why the pine marten is not every red squirrel's best friend               

Funeral pyres of unsaleable sheep ?

In December 2017 the total number of breeding sheep in the UK was 14.7 million plus 18.6 million other sheep; wether lambs, hoggs, non-breeding ewes and rams. UK farm livestock numbers Dec. 2017
December is when our sheep population is at it's lowest.

"Peak sheep" June 2019

Lambing begins in January and gathers momentum through late Winter and Spring reaching peak sheep population in June.

In June 2018, two months after we leave the European Union there will be between 34 and 35 million sheep in the UK. We are likely to face tariffs on sheep meat exports to the EU which currently takes 94% of sheep meat exports tariff free. There could be some millions of surplus unsaleable sheep running about this summer.Prospects for UK beef and sheep after Brexit

If we have 5 million surplus ewes after March 2019 ( see the link above) what is going to happen to them? Abattoirs are already booked for weeks ahead, domestic sheep meat consumption has been declining steadily for 50 years; the prospects for sheep farmers are grim. There's a possibility we could see the army in action and funeral pyres like those during the Foot and Mouth disease epidemic 18 years ago.

Bear in mind that this will be just one aspect of the economic self-harm inflicted by a "no-deal" exit from the EU.

Crispy squirrel with cauliflower and capers at the Roadkill Cafe.

If you have been paying attention you will know that we had a dinner in a "pop-up" restaurant in my workshop (Cafe Atelier) back in October.  Demand for another impromptu meal means that another is on the cards perhaps a, "Post- Brexit Apocalypse Dinner" on 30th March the day after Britain leaves the European Union. It should be an opportunity to get used to being a bunch of poverty stricken barbarians on the edge of the N. Atlantic once more. So this time it could be dinner at the,"Roadkill Cafe".

An alien invasive "crispy"species

Last week I was given three plump grey squirrels which had been humanely trapped and  dispatched by the Coquetdale Red Squirrel Group. Unfortunately I forgot them, they are still in Janet's freezer. Not to worry I have found some recipes for squirrel in Gil Meller's book on foraging and cooking, "Gather" . Crispy squirrel with cauliflower and capers would make an excellent entree.

My other choices for the menu; rabbit, pheasant and pigeon are relatively easy to find but the dessert should be "poverty food" such as coarse oatmeal with boiling water poured on to it. This is "brose" a rather unpleasant peasant breakfast in rural Scotland 50 years ago.

We will need a few malts of course to toast our totally incompetent and dysfunctional Prime Minister, the anarchist  Leader of the Opposition and the idiotic, sad, angry old men of the Conservative Party who got us into this mess.

A stoat in ermine .....caught and released for biological rat control.

Stoat in ermine  mid-winter camouflage

Until the end of November we were plagued by rats. They are always around when you keep hens. I don't like rat poison, it gets in the food chain, the alternative was to bait some of the squirrel traps , catch the rats alive and then deal with them.

In early December there were no rats to be seen and no rats in the traps...... what was happening?

This week we found the answer, I think. There was a stoat in it's winter coat in one of the traps, the stoat in the image above. It must have a territory around the village because the day after I released it we saw it attacking a neighbour's hen. The hen has survived so far, it's in a cardboard box in the kitchen recuperating from head and neck wounds.

Meanwhile another white stoat, probably the same one was caught in another of my traps in the old byre next door, it had been eating partridges hung quite high up on a beam. This one has been released too. It looks as if the rats have been cleaned out by the stoat or stoats and now they are going for hens and anything else they can find. We can put up with them in return for  "biological rat  control".