Things to Do on a Bank Holiday

Yesterday was a bank holiday. I am sure many people plan well in advance exactly how they are going to spend their time on such occasions. No doubt some of you had earmarked the day for some birding and were delighted to see the Met Office predicting cold, crisp and sunny. Personally I had a full day's piking planned and could not have wished for a less inspiring forecast. Still, a plan is a plan and 'you have to be in it to win it' is a cliché, so there I was on the canal at first light. Pretty soon I was noticing what other people were doing with their bank holiday...

Some were propelling a quad skull through the water as fast as possible. Those things can fly. The first came by while most decent citizens were still in their dressing gowns, and the crew were clearly experts. Eight oars in perfect harmony is very impressive. I doubt they improve the pike fishing though. However, people doing strenuous exercise on a thin boat in scanty clothing on a freezing morning were in the minority; far more popular were walking the dog, walking off the festive bloat, jogging, cycling and birding. There were so many people around that I couldn't avoid having to talk to one or two. None of the passing birders stopped for a chat though, which surprised me a bit because I spent quite a lot of my time scanning around with bins and looking vaguely birder-like. Yes, I had decided to write down a list of 'Birds Seen While Fishing'.

My final tally was 44 species. It probably would have been higher if I'd worked at it a bit harder but I did spend a few hours trying very hard to catch a pike, which involves active effort and concentration. Once I'd resigned myself to the inevitable blank which the weather had made so likely my list increased rapidly. I wonder if a birder would be able to work out where I was fishing simply from my bird list? Of course there are already too many other clues in both this post and recent NQS in general to make that question much of a challenge, but how many places in the UK could you be fishing for pike and see this particular combination: Brent Goose, Grey Plover, Redshank, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Avocet, Cetti's Warbler, Tufted Duck, Shoveler and Barnacle Goose? Of course, there must be loads of places where you might see most of that lot. But where else could you see all of them? Now that is a challenge.

So, I spent a nice bank holiday soaking some dead sea fish in a canal. Dusk came, darkness fell. The sky was amazingly clear. I brewed up a fresh cuppa and leaned back in my chair to gaze upwards. In a short space of time I saw four shooting stars, one the brightest (though not the longest) I've ever witnessed. Stunning. I packed up around 7pm. Everything was already covered in frost...

New Year Plans...

Why is the start of a new calendar year so beguiling? I expect I am no different to most in looking forward to January 1st. If you are one of those who crack open a fresh notebook on that date, you have right there a handy metaphor, because the new year is equally pristine. Oh how carefully you write on that first page. Probably your intention is to maintain that commendable neatness for the next twelve months. Unfortunately though, a quick browse through last year's jottings will soon reacquaint you with reality. Blots, smudges, crossings-out, perhaps even the ripped edge of a page removed in annoyance because you mucked it up so badly. And so it is with life. And so it will be in 2017. Nevertheless, a fresh start is a fresh start, and like everybody else I shall embrace it!

I do have plans for next year, but mostly loose ones. For the first time in many, many years some of those plans are fish-related, and as these are probably the most flexible of all I shan't bore you with stuff that might never see the light of day. Then there is bike. I shall try and keep reasonably fit by cycling uphill a lot. Which reminds me: most of the bloggers I read have mentioned plans for this and plans for that during 2017, but never plans for bike. Why not? Loads of them are, like me, verging on doddery, and I think they are missing a trick. Perhaps they lack inspiration? A quick review of one or two NQS cycling posts might be needed. All of them plainly convey the sheer joy provided by two wheels and a steep gradient. And who wants to go to their grave unable to say that they unashamedly wore lycra in public?

After several weeks of hosting viruses I finally got out for a ride today, and as I cycled the mucky lanes I mulled over a 2017 plan I've been toying with...

Bike. Lane. Muck. Standard winter fare.

During the course of 2016 I notched up a few nice birds from my bike, and I wondered whether I might find it interesting next year to actually list them, as in a 'Birds From My Bike' list. Of course it would all be naked eye stuff, or heard, but this year I would have had Wheatear, Whinchat, Redstart, Corn Bunting etc, plus a Hoopoe that I twitched. I think I shall give it a go. Mind you, if I start falling off due to not looking where I'm going, well...

Birds, but not Birding

Currently hanging out to dry in the garden are a landing net and weigh sling, while an unhooking mat lies airing on the gravel, damp side uppermost. An angler will know the significance of this. A birdwatcher, meanwhile, will know the significance of this:

A Robin. More specifically, a starving Robin on the scrounge. Look how thin it is. It's late December, deep into that period when our garden birds want us to supplement their diet with nutritious freebies. This garden bird was a very long way from a garden, but that didn't prevent it holding out its bony little hand. "Oi! Where's me maggots?!" Robins know that anglers all fester somewhat, and are therefore likely to harbour maggots. Frequently they are correct, but this one yesterday was out of luck. A few weeks ago I bought some mealworms for just this scenario but had forgotten to pack them. Ridiculously I felt guilty. So guilty that I tore off some of my cheese roll and crumbled it into appropriately tiny pieces. Mildly outraged, the Robin tutted loudly and bobbed up and down a bit. It then cocked an eye at my apologetic offering and checked for anything wriggly. Eventually, with a melodramatic sigh of resignation, it dropped onto the grass and grabbed a crumb.

Ungrateful wretch.

A frustrating highlight of yesterday's trip was a brief view of what I am 99% sure was an eared owl sp. Rob saw it too and even he, with his very unpractised eye, thought it was an owl. It was right on dusk and I had no bins. Anyway, never mind. After all, this is now an angling/cycling blog, so we can allow decent birds to get away from us willy-nilly without batting an eyelid. Therefore ignore that adjective in the first sentence - not frustrating. No, perfectly acceptable.

Well then, for the benefit of the two anglers who read this blog, why the wet net et al? More pike is why. A little jack of 4lb or so plus a nice low double of 11lb 10oz. The little one was absolutely pristine and gorgeous, the most vivid green with cream spots and stripes, while the bigger one had an amazing golden hue, the like of which I have never seen...

Painting With Light

This afternoon I've been moving stuff from the loft to the man-cave. This is a job I've been putting off, because I knew exactly what would happen...and it did. You see, mostly it was boxes of old photos. Fatal. Whenever I am in close proximity to old photos I seem to lose multiple hours of my life at a stroke...

When it comes to photos the time thing is a problem for me in other ways too. Photography very nearly became a hobby, but I could never give it the time it needed. In fact I deeply resented its temporal demands upon me. "Don't go fishing," it said, "No. Instead take your horrible Russian Zenit B out for the day and compose some arty shots of tree bark or something. Then spend the evening developing up your black and white negatives before booking a session in the darkroom, where you'll be able to fritter a few more frustrating hours being inept with the enlarger."

It all began in February 1979 when I got a job at Kodak Ltd in Harrow. As older readers will remember, once upon a time the name 'Kodak' was virtually synonymous with 'photograph', and the average punter's camera was loaded with Kodak film and his/her photos were printed on Kodak paper. New employees like me were sent on a training course in Hemel Hempstead to learn some basic photography skills. We were sent out with a manual SLR and some B&W film to do some painting-with-light in Hemel Old Town. Predictably a couple of us wound up in a pub, where I took this...

Summer 1979. Even today I don't think this is too shabby. It won 'Best Portrait' category on the course, which went straight to my head and told me that I was a photographic genius in the making.

So that was it. I was - kind of reluctantly - hooked. I bought the awful second-hand Zenit B and began to waste a lot of perfectly good fishing time. Here's one I took a while later...

Summerhouse Lake, Bentley Priory, Stanmore, in 1979 or '80. I did the sepia-toning by hand. At the time I worked in the Kodak Research Dept. I took the B&W print in to work with me and mixed up a sepia-toning solution in the lab when I should have been doing actual work for my employer. I got the recipe for the mix from a book in the department's library. Back in those days everything you needed for a good skive was just handed to you on a plate...

My flirtation with photography didn't last. I was soon back to angling, and then birding took over. However, in the very late '90s I was surprised to be signed up for another company-run course, this one on colour photography. Looking back I'm amazed that the firm could afford it by then. Competition from Fuji et al., plus the looming spectre of digital meant Kodak was struggling. Still, if they insisted on sending me off to play for a few days I wasn't going to argue. Once again we were let loose with a manual SLR, this time armed with a couple of colour films. We were given some subject categories and a couple of days. I got up very, very early the next morning, full of plans, and got stuck in...

The River Chess at Scotsbridge, Rickmansworth. It was dawn - dead still, and only just light. I put the camera on my birding tripod and used a long exposure, which is why the river has that smooth, hazy look. This shot won 'Best Overall' and confirmed what I'd always known - I am actually a genius.

Later that morning I headed for the Grand Union Canal at Harefield, where a stream rushes into the canal through a culvert - so vigorously that a short kayaking slalom is permanently located there. I was hoping to take some action shots of someone using it. I timed my arrival perfectly. A friendly bloke was just getting in the water and was fine with me taking some photos. So I positioned myself at the top of the run, just where he'd have to turn around to head back to the start. I set a fast shutter speed, and waited...

Okay, just in case no one else says it, I will: this is a BRILLIANT photo! Remember this is the pre-digital age; you had no idea what sort of photos you'd taken until you developed the film. In the event I had 35 frames of rubbish...and THIS. Back in the classroom I am convinced that everyone thought I'd cheated somehow, photographed a page in a book or something. Even I was totally gobsmacked, despite the fact that by now I was well aware of my own genius...

Notice how water is involved in all the above? Even my little dabblings in photography reveal that love of wet places. River, lake, canal...and yes, the pub had liquid if I recall...

The BTO Reply: Dear Gavin, re 'Lies, Damned Lies...etc'

On 11 December I wrote the post Lies, Damned Lies...and Statistics, in which I took issue with a tweet published by the BTO back on 3 December. The BTO has kindly responded.

Here's the original tweet...

My criticism focused on that statistic: '...[cats] only bring 23% of their prey home'

I'll try and summarise my criticism by breaking it into three main points:

1. I questioned the motive for the tweet, suggesting it was inflammatory.
2. After reading the research paper which produced the 23% figure I felt that including this statistic in the tweet was not valid or appropriate; disingenuous even.
3. On first reading the tweet I thought its context implied reference to avian prey items, i.e. that for every single bird killed by a cat and brought home, another three were killed and not brought home. I also thought it was specifically referring to the state of affairs in the UK. I was wrong! It was soon evident that I had read more into the tweet than it actually said. So now I felt misled!

In other words I felt the venerable BTO had rather strayed into tabloidism, with a sensationalist tweet embellished by spurious data. And the BTO is an organisation I want to trust.

Below my original post are several comments, some sympathising with aspects of my view, one vigorously not. The BTO got in touch, wishing to add a comment but finding themselves constrained by the character limit on Blogger's 'comments' facility.

So here is the BTO comment in full, mostly written by Dr. Viola Ross-Smith, BTO Science Communications Manager, with input from four others...

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We were interested to see your blog post, prompted by our tweet about a talk given at the recent BTO conference. The BTO is an impartial, evidence-based, non-campaigning organisation. We have no position or agenda when it comes to cats, but we do share relevant peer reviewed science on this topic, as it is of interest to our supporters and social media followers.

We hold an annual conference for our members each December, and our programme always includes a range of speakers from within and outside the BTO. The tweet you are referring to was about a talk given by an invited external speaker, Dr Becky Thomas. Dr Thomas’s research is wider than traditional ornithology, but our conference programme always includes topics that encompass broader issues, as our members tend to have a general interest in wildlife. Incidentally, despite our name, our own BTO research incorporates topics other than birds, and recent publications have included work on invertebrates and mammals. We also work internationally, typified by our recent success tracking Cuckoos breeding in China.

Our BTO tweeters are trained scientists, able to think critically about other peoples’ research and disseminate it appropriately. We aim to make science accessible, but it is of course very difficult to capture the complexity and caveats of a scientific study in 140 characters, which is why we try to include links to further relevant information where possible, and also to address questions any about our tweets. The photo we used in this particular tweet was one Dr Thomas herself presented to accompany the 23% statistic, which featured in the introduction to her talk.

The response to this tweet exposes a wider issue being debated in society at the moment about the validity of the scientific method itself, and whether experts should be taken seriously or indeed trusted at all. All published science goes through a rigorous peer review process. This has been refined over hundreds of years, and although criticism may be levelled at it, peer review is widely recognized as being the best procedure we have for publishing science that seeks to understand the true nature of the universe – whether that be interactions between cats and other wildlife, clinical drug trials or experiments on particle acceleration.

Peer review is the scientific gold standard and, therefore, studies like the one Dr Thomas quoted should not be dismissed out of hand. Having spent several years working on her topic, Dr Thomas is an expert in her field and we invited her to speak at our conference on this basis. She has published several peer reviewed articles on the subject she spoke about, one of which was linked to in the tweet. She herself takes part in the peer review process to critically assess others’ work, and if she considers that another study is worth reporting at our annual conference, we in turn trust her expert judgement and tweet it.

When it comes to sample size, it is important to remember that science is incremental. It’s true that 39 prey items is a relatively small sample, but it doesn't make the research worthless or wrong, it just means we should be careful with extrapolating up to larger samples. If we always waited until we had a sample size of 500 or 5000 before publishing, then scientific knowledge would progress at a much slower rate than it does currently. It's important to publish with the data we have available to help define future questions and hypotheses. The peer review process ensures studies do not appear too often or with too little data, safeguarding against people extrapolating their results or drawing conclusions that aren't justified. By the by, in the study in question, the comments on the blog calculating 2.8 kills a year per cat are not quite correct – the study found an average of 2.4 prey items per 7 days (not over 3 months), so the total number of kills for an average cat in a year would be estimated at 124.8, of which 16 would be birds if the ratios in the overall population are the same as the published sample. Of course, we agree with you that these ratios may vary for cats in different parts of the USA and in other countries such as the UK, where the faunal community is different. There will also likely be variation in prey items for cats in different seasons and habitats. These would all be interesting avenues for future research.

These are some of the reasons why we stand by our tweet, our guest speaker, and by work published by our fellow scientists in general; we hope it underlines both our impartial stance and the thought we put into how we compose our social media content. The scientific method is central to the work that we do and we place huge importance in presenting statistics that stand up to scientific scrutiny. We’d be disappointed to see people dismiss our wider work purely because they take issue with a statistic from peer reviewed research, within the public domain, and presented through one of our communications channels.

Our reputation as an independent and impartial organisation enables us to provide the evidence base that supports conservation and other decision making processes that shape the natural world in which we live. We hope that this reassures you about our intentions in promoting this particular piece of scientific research, taken from a longer presentation, and please do get in touch if you have any further queries about this or, indeed, our other work.

________________________________________

So, had that comment appeared beneath my original post, this is more or less how I would have replied:

Dear BTO,

Many thanks for taking the time to comment in response to this post. I do appreciate it.

First off, thanks for correcting my arithmetic in relation to Karen Woolley's comment. I had overlooked the fact that the numbers were based on one week rather than three months. Mercifully though, that basic error doesn't torpedo my criticism.

The tweet touches on what is an emotive issue for many. In view of the fact that I saw the tweet as somewhat inflammatory I was interested to see what you might have to say about the motive behind it. I note that you say the BTO is 'impartial' and 'non-campaigning' and has 'no position or agenda when it comes to cats' and that the tweet 'was about a talk given by...Dr Becky Thomas.' Fair enough, and I take all that at face value. However, if you were to show that tweet to a few hundred random people on the street and ask them what they thought it was all about I would be interested to know the outcome. I am confident that a fair percentage would see it as I did.

Now I'd like you to imagine those few hundred random people asking you a simple question...

“Twenty-three percent? Where did that come from?”

So you explain there was a study carried out. Cats were fitted with little video cameras so that the researchers could see exactly what happened to anything the cats caught. And that the cameras revealed they only brought home 23% of their prey, roughly a quarter. Which means that three out of every four prey items is either eaten on the spot or just left there.

“Really? That's terrible! So all our cats are out there killing things and we only get to see a quarter of it?”

“Well, no. Not all our cats; we can't apply it to all cats.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the study only involved 55 cats in total.”

“Ah, right, fair enough. But those 55, you're saying that between them they all brought home only a quarter of what they caught?”

“Er...no, not exactly. Only 16 of them actually caught anything, and 31 didn't even try. But, on average, each of those 16 brought home only 23% of their prey."

Man-in-the-street is now a bit confused...

“But it says in this tweet: 'Cats hunt no matter how much they are fed by their owners & they only bring 23% of their prey home'. It doesn't say some cats, it doesn't say 16 out of 55...I thought it meant cats generally, you know, all of them! That's what it implies!”

“But it doesn't actually say 'all of them', does it.”

“Well, I suppose not, but I just thought...okay, so you're saying I'm just a bit dense and read it wrong? Ha ha! It's all right, relax – I'm joking! Anyway, 16 cats you say? Just 16? Was that round here was it? Local?”

“Er...no. It was in the state of Georgia, USA.”

Personally I reckon man-in-the-street is now giving you the wry look that he usually reserves for numbers he reads in the Daily Mail. How do you think he views your use of that 23% statistic?

And finally, I wonder how many of those random citizens would look at the pigeon in the photo, learn you were from an organisation focused on birds and mistakenly conclude that this must therefore be all about birds.

“Oh dear! So for every little Robin my Tiddles brings home she leaves another three out there to rot, poor things?”

“No, no,” you explain, “There were only five birds killed in this study. The other 34 prey items were mammals, dragonflies, worms, lizards and so on, and the 23% figure was calculated from all of them, not just the birds.”

“Oh, I see. So this tweet's not just about birds? I thought...oh...Anyway, did you say 'lizards'?”

“Yes. You see, lizards are common where this research was carried out.”

“Oh, okay. Where was that then?”

“Er...in Georgia, USA...”

Hopefully my point is clear.

In the penultimate paragraph you state: “These are some of the reasons why we stand by our tweet...”

Sadly I think this statement underlines a fundamental problem.

Let me illustrate by referring to Bob Vaughan's hearty criticism of my original post. He states that in my post I “...attempt to belittle what is a perfectly honest piece of research...” The fact is, I had absolutely no intention of belittling that research; on the contrary, I found it very interesting (I questioned its application in your tweet, but that's different). I have read over my post several times and cannot see how Bob interpreted it the way he did, but nevertheless that is how he saw it, that I was knocking the research. In the light of his comment, if I was to wind the clock back and write it all again I would write it differently. I would make strenuous efforts to word it less ambiguously, to minimise the possibility of anyone being misled. In other words, because of the feedback I would change. Why? Because I wouldn't want the same thing to happen again.

Do you think that would be a wise and sensible course?

Or do you think I should simply write it exactly as before, word for word, because I know what I mean and if he doesn't get it, well then, that's his fault?

Possibly you are correct in paragraph four, in that my response to your tweet exposes the wider issue being debated in society re "the validity of the scientific method itself, and whether experts should be taken seriously or even trusted at all". That is all wa-a-a-ay beyond the scope of this particular post, but I suppose I could say this: if the public felt it had been misled by scientists, and said so, and the scientists' response was "That's how we do things, and we think it's okay", well, trust will struggle to thrive...

That your reply to my post contains only defense of your tweet, no suggestion that you might review your tweet output in future, and conveys only a deep conviction that scientists intrinsically have the high ground, all makes me wonder if you actually heard what my post was trying to say.

So there we are. Once again, my thanks to you all at the BTO for taking the time to respond to what was little more than a "rantette" really, as Bob Vaughan put it. It's been fascinating and I've learned a lot. Clearly there were other points in your reply which I haven't addressed, but this post is more than long enough already. Cheers, Gavin.

Wet Places - a Beginning

I must apologise. Some of my recent posts have been a bit joyless I think. So I'm going to try and write something a bit more upbeat...

Across its various incarnations NQS has changed. It has become less and less a diary type blog, vicarious birding is nowadays mostly off the menu, and cycling, fishing and pitiful nostalgia are regularly in the mix. Fair enough perhaps, change happens. But unfortunately I suspect also that it's getting a bit more moany. So, in an effort to lift the tone to somewhere sunnier I thought I would try and explore my love of watery places, and see where that leads...

________________________________________________

In 1964 my mother was a young, divorced single parent living in Roydon, Essex. Providing for two small children meant a hectic life, so she would have appreciated the Sunday invitation from a friend in nearby Broxbourne. While the women nattered and minded the toddler indoors, the little boy could be entertained in the garden. The boy was a handful, but my mother's friend's husband had a plan. Perhaps a spot of fishing might keep him quiet? The garden ran down to the River Lea, and that afternoon I caught my very first fish. Four bleak and a perch.

Or should I say they caught me?

One by one, as each was swung ashore, it was plopped into a bucket of water. I was five years old and, although I can vividly picture the scene, what I cannot do is genuinely evoke the emotions. My mum tells me I was absolutely ecstatic, eagerly dragging her out of the house to view my little bucketful of triumph. I'm sure she's not exaggerating, because I was never quite the same again. From then on, every single body of water I encountered drew me like a magnet. Ditch, pond or stream, all I could think about were the mysteries that lay beneath the surface. Yes, it was I who had been hooked.

Aged six, we moved to Harlow New Town. Hardly an oasis. I remember only the odd netted stickleback. Then at nine, after my mother remarried, we moved to Kenton, near Harrow in the NW London suburbs. Not far away was Barn Hill Pond. To get there involved a twenty-five minute walk, initially through residential estates, then over a railway footbridge, across a field and up a scrubby slope to the top of a modest hill overlooking Wembley Stadium. There lay boyhood heaven...

This is Barn Hill Pond as I remember it, so I'm guessing the photo dates from the mid/late '60s. My favourite fishing spot was half way along the left hand bank. (From the Brent Museum and Archives website)

Hardly an inland sea, is it! Admittedly the water level is very low here. Early '60s? The leaning tree in this photo is just a stump in the image above. I remember the stump. (From the Brent Museum and Archives website)

I spent many a happy day here, fuelled by rampant optimism and marmalade sandwiches. Often there would be four or five boys around the pond, drowning worms and swapping insults. The early arrivals would have dragged out one of the two milk crates to sit on. Very occasionally someone would catch a fish...

A Barn Hill monster. Or two, rather...

With hindsight, Barn Hill Pond was a bit tenth-rate in many ways. On a nice day it would be busy with families out for a stroll, dogs plunging into the water and, if you were unlucky, oafish members of 'the Little Kingsbury' coming to see if they could nick some fishing tackle...

But it was water. And it had fish. It was a lowly but important step along the road that has led me to love watery places my whole life...

Lies, Damned Lies...and Statistics

As anyone who follows me on Twitter will already know, most of my tweets these days involve shameless, predictable NQS blog post promotion. Yesterday though, I got a bit out of character. It all started with a BTO tweet that appeared on my Twitter feed, and is reproduced in the screenshot below. I'd like to ask a favour please. Before you plough on through the rest of this post take a few moments to digest the BTO tweet. What does the tweet tell you? How do you read it? What message do you think the BTO is trying to convey here? What is the motive for posting such a tweet?

You get the point. I'm just asking for a bit of analysis. I'd be grateful to hear what you think. Anyway, here it is:

Right then, here's what I thought...

First off, I distrust numbers. 23% eh? How exactly did they measure the 77% that were not brought home? That was my initial reaction. A cynical one. I couldn't access the 'bit.ly/2h5ta1P' link so simply replied to the tweet and asked my question. I received a very quick and helpful reply, thus:

However, before I go on I must mention something else that I thought on reading the original BTO tweet. I thought we were talking about birds. After all, we have a photo of a cat and a bird, the BTO is an organisation centred upon birds, and so surely what this tweet is conveying to us is the concern that for every one bird that is brought home, another three are killed and left. Oh, and I also thought we were talking about British birds (British Trust for Ornithology?).

Yes, I made assumptions. That's why I am curious how others see this tweet. Incidentally Mrs NQS read it exactly the same, without any prompting from me.

Anyway, in another tweet Becky Thomas kindly added that she had given the presentation at the BTO Conference, in case I had any other questions. I replied thanks, but that I'd read the research paper first and come back to her if necessary.

So I read the research paper. Fascinating stuff. And how did they know how many victims the cats brought home vs didn't bring home? By mounting little cameras on their study cats! Of course, why hadn't I worked that out myself?! I read on...

The study took place in the state of Georgia, USA. Not Britain. The cats involved were ordinary pet cats who were allowed outdoors, in various habitats ranging from urban to rural - 55 cats in total. Data were collected over one year. The cats were divided into four groups of 12-15 each, and each group monitored for just one season, i.e. spring, summer, fall or winter. Of those 55 cats, the paper said that 44% displayed hunting activity, i.e. stalking, chasing, etc. As 44% of 55 = 24.2 I'm assuming that 24 of the 55 cats displayed hunting activity. Of those 24, just 16 made one or more successful kills. The total number of creatures killed was 39, all of which were identifiable thanks to the cameras, the vast majority to species. Of those 39 kills, just five were birds. FIVE!

Look again at that original tweet! The tweet is all about birds isn't it?

Ah, but is it? What the research paper does not do is tell you how many of those five birds were brought home; it simply tells you the percentage of prey brought home. Which, in fairness, is exactly what the BTO tweet says too. It's not how I read it though! You?

So off I go again, tippy-tapping away on Twitter like some deranged pedant...

And there we are, the latest storm in my little teacup. I'll be honest, that BTO tweet annoyed me. I thought it was inflammatory. Everyone knows the cat/bird issue is emotive, and I couldn't see any realistic purpose to this tweet beyond stirring things up. Why do that? And after reading the research paper upon which that 23% is based I also feel the tweet is disingenuous.

The BTO tweet was sent on 3 December, and between then and now it has been retweeted 72 times. I wonder what it's achieved. No doubt it has reinforced the views of those who think cats are instruments of Satan, and it's wound up one or two number pedants like me, but what else? We are bombarded every day with statistics designed to uphold a viewpoint or justify some course of action. When those numbers support our own opinion we love them, and when they don't, we point out how they've been twisted and misapplied. Yet nearly all of them are not to be trusted. That tweet does not say reassuring things about other numbers the BTO might publish...

Naughty BTO.

Oh, and three of those 39 confirmed kills were worms. Fact.