Too rare. I have seen a few in Hoghton Tower Wood.
I wonder why?
The balance of nature is fascinating, delicate and in many ways any change has far reaching consequences.
I can remember as a child in the late 50's early 60's waking up every weekend to the sound of shotguns down in Alum Scar woods and across Woodfold Park. EVERY bloody weekend! In the end the woods were shot to death and there was nothing left alive. Not only had pigeons, crows, rabbits, woodcock and magpies perished but so too had just about every songbird, slaughtered as some sort of skewed compensation by frustrated shooters. It stayed that way as an eerily silent, sombre and often sinister wood until the tightening up of the gun laws when things started to recover.
The effects of the more stringent gun laws was marked. Initially by increasing numbers of wood pigeons and also rabbits spreading up from Hunter's Hill. The rabbits quickly reaching plague proportions!
The extending of 'controlled shooting' saw Hoghton shoot extend and incorporate Woodfold Park. The annual introduction of thousands of pheasants (and in the early days duck as the River Darwen ran clear and freshwater fish etc returned) involved the feeding of significant quantities of wheat, this in addition to the game cover planted around the woods no doubt increased numbers of voles, shrews, mice, small birds and of course rats. The effects of these changes and the increase in food supply down the food chain heralded increased numbers of of Buzzards and owls plus large numbers of foxes. Most of these foxes imo being bold as brass and obviously of the 'urban' variety, trapped in cities and dumped in the countryside. No doubt as a result of some unpublicised 'deals' with animal rights activists.
These foxes are totally unsuitable to urban life and predate / scrounge on just about everything, ground nesting birds, dustbins, cats etc. But which
'right on ya, yoghurt knitting good for nothing' cares about that eh? Luckily modern rifle night vision and infra red scopes allows these foxes to be disposed of with relative ease and in large numbers.
The next species to benefit were more scroungers e.g. magpies, jays, crows and the inevitable 'greys'! Best thing about the out-of-season 'shootists' was the annual spring cull of these as bored shooters organised by keen gamekeepers and conscientious shoot captains enjoyed mornings of sport and shot out lots of nests and dreys clearly visible in the trees before the leaves came out. Without such measures the prolific greys would be everywhere and song birds would have disappeared.
Where it all goes next I really can't say. What I do know is that human interference will decide.
