Tweed Valley osprey love triangle chicks fail to survive
The unusual breeding situation was revealed last month when the relationship between the birds was "looking good".They worked together to incubate the four eggs in the nest and the chicks began to hatch on 28 May.But by that stage the male bird - named Newboy - had abandoned the nest, leaving the two females - F2 and Mrs O - to provide for the chicks.Project co-ordinator Diane Bennett said that process had started out quite well.
"It was with huge relief to everyone on the project when F2 brought a half-eaten fish back to the nest and both females began to feed the tiny chicks together," she said."It was a unique moment to witness and it was looking hopeful that they would figure out a feeding strategy to look after their young between them."However, no further fish were brought to the nest over Friday and Saturday."The chicks were begging for food, Mrs O went into her instinctive role to nurture her young, protect them and to stay with them," Diane Bennett said."This left F2 to go against her natural instinct to do the same as Mrs O and to become the hunter and provider instead, which ordinarily is the role of the male bird in the osprey breeding cycle."F2 was struggling to fulfil this role, Newboy never returned and Mrs O was locked into her motherhood mode."
She said that F2 did eventually return on Monday with a "small portion of half-eaten fish" but Mrs O was "so ravenous" that she had eaten it, leaving none for the chicks.On Tuesday, when Mrs O stood away from the brood, it was clear that three of the young had died and one was still "begging to be fed".F2 did eventually bring some fish to the nest but by that time the remaining chick had also "succumbed to starvation and passed away"."Everyone is so heartbroken that the female ospreys have not managed to make this situation work," said Diane Bennett."This has been very upsetting and sad to watch this family drama turn to tragedy and brings home just how vulnerable and fragile the whole breeding cycle can be for ospreys."For their very brief lives they touched many hearts of people who dearly wanted them to survive."However, she said it was "not all doom and gloom" in the Tweed Valley as other birds that had fledged from the area had been spotted far afield.Sightings have been reported on the Isle of Anglesey, in North Yorkshire and the Usk Valley in Wales.
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BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
When Scotland was the world's UFO hot spot
Thirty years ago, Scotland was the centre of the UFO 1990s started with a photograph that has achieved almost folkloric status as one of the best images of an Unidentified Flying came a flood of sightings of mystery objects in a part of central Scotland which came to be known as the Falkirk captured the world's imagination, attracting journalists from around the globe and leading to claims of conspiracies, cover-ups and cheap publicity truth may still be out there. It is certainly complicated. And three decades on, what actually happened is still the subject of passionate debate. Bonnybridge is a village of about 6,000 people near Falkirk. It lies close to the main Edinburgh to Glasgow rail line and Forth and Clyde many of the surrounding towns and villages, the manufacturing industries which once prospered there are long gone. It is a quiet, tucked-away part of the country and was probably on few radars until 1992, when locals started reporting strange lights in the Robinson has lived in the area for most of his life. He has been interested in UFOs and the paranormal since childhood and founded the amateur research group Strange Phenomena Investigations (SPI) in 1992, he became aware of something on his own doorstep."I heard about it on a local radio station," he says. "Billy Buchanan, the local councillor, was on there talking about these UFO sightings and I went: 'Wow, by God I really need to get in touch with him and see if I can lend any assistance'."Councillor Buchanan had begun collecting reports from constituents who said they had seen strange lights and objects in the sky. Things they did not recognise, things they could not explain. Towards the end of that year, he had recorded more than 200 incidents. It is important to say that the term UFO means Unidentified Flying Object. It does not describe alien ships visiting the Bonnybridge UFO reports covered a wide spectrum of events, including a motorist describing lights in the form of a cross hovering above a road before morphing into a another occasion a family witnessed a bright circle of light landing in a interest was immediate and intense. The local newspaper and national tabloids were hungry for headlines. TV reporters joked about alien visitors but still came looking for crews were dispatched to cover a UFO watch, held on a cold November night. They left without a close encounter.A public meeting was held in January 1993. Concerned locals were looking for answers. The term Falkirk Triangle was coined, covering the area between Stirling, Falkirk and West Lothian. Those who study UFOs know that media reporting leads to greater public awareness and more sightings. That certainly happened around Bonnybridge. Sightings continued to make headlines for another three or four years. In 1997, they were the subject of the prime time TV programme Strange But it, Billy Buchanan talks about writing to the recently elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, demanding an investigation. His request was photographs and tales of unexplained encounters continued. But the story drew accusations of fakery, publicity-seeking and even tabloid newspaper claims that aliens had been in contact with Robinson was there throughout - investigating the reports, following up what people said they had seen and checking air traffic, police and military records. "I was astonished by how massive the story was," he says. "Everybody and their granny wanted to know about what was going on there. And quite rightly so."The problem we got is that some members of the media community were hyping things up. So if it was 100 sightings it suddenly became 1,000 sightings."Malcolm puts the total number of sightings in the region at about 350 between 1982, the year he began recording incidents, and Lyndsay was a Ministry of Defence (MoD) press officer in Scotland during that period and remembers recording the reports."When I started work there in 1989 I fairly quickly discovered that nearly always in the evening there would be someone calling RAF Pitreavie about lights in the sky or something like that."Nearly always around Falkirk, Bonnybridge, to the point that we actually had what you call a pro forma form. If the controllers weren't busy, they would just fill in the form and send it off to London."But if they were busy, they would divert the call to me, and I would speak to the person and get the details and I would fax the thing off to London and we never heard anything more about them. It was a fairly common occurrence."It was just, to be blunt, folks coming out of the pub and seeing things." But the Falkirk Triangle is not the only UFO mystery to come from that weekend, at a public talk in Perthshire, enthusiasts will gather to discuss one of the subject's most enduring was captured by camera in the skies above Calvine on a summer's day in 1990?The photo we see today is grainy and indistinct. It is framed by the branches of a tree and a wood and wire fence. Between them, low in the sky, is a diamond-shaped object, a ridge along its and slightly lower and flying right to left is a small, modern military jet. It has been identified as a Harrier, a fighter then in service with the appears to be approaching the object, which looks unlike anything generally seen crossing Scotland's skies. This is what we know about the was taken by two young chefs from a Pitlochry Hotel while walking near Calvine at about 21:00 on 4 August to the account they later gave the MoD's Craig Lindsay, the craft made no sound, left no smoke trails, and appeared to be hovering. They watched as the Harrier flew around it. The men took six photos of the object before it flew away vertically, disappearing at great sent the photos to the Daily Record newspaper, which got in touch with Craig at his office at RAF Pitreavie Castle. After the paper sent him copies of the photos, he contacted his bosses in London, duly spoke to the men who witnessed the incident, filed the details and moved the newspaper never ran a story, never published the that year, while on a routine visit to the MoD in Whitehall, Craig saw a copy of the best photo on display in a room."I opened a door and facing me on the wall was a big poster-sized print. I made some remark about 'oh crikey you guys are taking this thing seriously now' and we got talking and they produced prints of the other six," he says."After that I waited to see what was going to happen. London said they'd sent it off to the specialists and gradually I forgot about the thing. It just went out of my mind."Craig came across a reference to the Calvine sighting six years later in Nick Pope's book Open Skies, Closed Minds. Pope was a civil servant who worked on the MoD's "UFO desk" for three years in the 1990s, analysing reported sightings and assessing whether they posed a threat to national wrote: "The Calvine report remains one of the most intriguing cases in the Ministry of Defence's files. The conclusions, however, are depressingly familiar: object unexplained, case closed, no further action." Someone else who read that book was Dr David Clarke. A journalist and academic, he has studied UFO reports for more than three decades and has been instrumental in analysing official records held in the National Archives in 2009, he found a reproduction of the photo in one of the files there. He was keen to know more but it took another 12 years of searching before the trail led him to Craig Lindsay, by then long-retired from the MoD and living quietly in David recounts in a 2022 article revealing the existence of the photo and his search for answers, Craig told him: "I have been for waiting for someone to contact me about this for more than 30 years."Craig said he had not seen the picture in all that time but after searching through boxes of old papers and books stored in his garage, discovered a full-quality copy of the best image showing the craft and Harrier together.A photographer colleague of David's at Sheffield Hallam University has analysed the picture and vouches for its authenticity. The image shows a real object captured on film. Whatever it is, it was there in the David sees it, there are a huge number of unanswered questions about the Calvine photo. The identities of the men who took it remain a secret, nobody knows why the Daily Record never ran the story, no trace has been found of the Harrier or its is determined to find answers."I've got my MP involved now, asking questions of John Healey, the Minister of Defence. Saying, you know, you can't just say all we know about this is what's been released to the National Archives," he says."That's nonsense. There must be something about it somewhere that's not been released." All around the world, people continue to see strange things in the US Congress has held hearings examining multiple reports from military pilots about unexplained big unanswered question about Calvine, the Falkirk Triangle, indeed any reported UFO sighting, is what did they see?There is no consensus on this. David does not believe in alien visitors. In fact, few people seriously studying the topic think that. Nor does he buy into some of the other theories put forward for the Calvine photo: that it is a mountain peeking through mist or something reflected on of the most common explanations given for UFOs for decades now is that they are secret, experimental spy planes. The 1990s in particular were filled with reports of the US "Aurora" programme, said to be the next generation of very fast stealth air base in Kintyre, with its relatively remote setting and two-mile long runway, was frequently identified as the source of fast objects crossing Scotland's skies, making impossible the US government has never admitted to building such a plane and no evidence links the base to any secret programmes. The MoD closed its UFO desk in 2009 because it "served no defence purpose".A spokesperson told BBC Scotland News: "The MoD has no opinion on the existence of extra-terrestrial life and no longer investigates reports of sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unidentified Flying Objects. "This is because, in over 50 years, no such reporting to the department indicated the existence of any military threat to the UK, and it was deemed more valuable to prioritise MoD staff resources towards other defence-related activities."Malcolm Robinson estimates there are still about 45 to 60 UFO reports in the Falkirk Triangle every year. He and Billy Buchanan continue to lobby politicians at Westminster and Holyrood for a public inquiry."There still is phenomena attached to Bonnybridge or why would we go down to see subsequent prime ministers?" Malcolm asks. "There is something definitely ongoing." David Clarke is determined to find out what was in the skies over Calvine 35 years ago."It's straightforward. It's either a hoax or a prank that just got out of hand, or it's some kind of military exercise. There's no other explanation. I don't believe in aliens," he says."And I just want to get to the bottom of it because, as an investigative reporter, I hate mysteries."Dr David Clarke will be speaking at Blair Atholl Village Hall at 16:00 on Saturday 2 August.
Times
9 hours ago
- Times
Class snobbery is at heart of NHS gender war
Outside the tribunal in Dundee, Jane Russell KC, stopped to pet a border collie. 'Would that be a female dog or a male dog?' asked a mischievous Scot. Russell laughed nervously. 'Ha-HAH! Well, I don't know. How would you know?' she mumbled, then darted into the building. Does Russell, a keen horsewoman who celebrated taking silk by galloping through London on a steed called Jupiter, really believe biological sex is 'complicated', that babies — and, presumably, dogs and horses — are randomly 'assigned' male or female at birth by a midwife/vet? Or is this just fashionable sophistry she deploys to defend her clients NHS Fife and the trans-identified male doctor Beth Upton? Certainly for Sandie Peggie this postmodern conceit is no joke. A nurse for 30 years, she was suspended, put through internal disciplinary hearings and at this tribunal has endured scrutiny of every intimate matter, from her menstrual cycle to whether she loves her lesbian daughter, just for upholding a basic truth: sex is real. Of all such cases — and I've followed many — none encapsulates the shibboleths, snobberies and magical thinking of our age so well. Day after day we heard doctors and managers of Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, relate how they unashamedly closed ranks against a working-class nurse, whose rights, feelings or even basic humanity fell beyond their #BeKind purview. It started on Christmas Eve 2023, when Peggie rushed to the female changing rooms, fearing that a sudden menstrual flood — a common occurrence around menopause — had soaked her scrubs. When Dr Upton entered, Peggie says she told him he was making her feel uncomfortable and asked him to leave. But this incident, which sparked almost two years of litigation, isn't the most shocking. Twice before, Peggie had come in to change, seen Upton, turned around and waited outside until he left. She'd said nothing, just declined to undress in front of him. But Upton reported her anyway and — amazingly — his line manager Dr Kate Searle took his side: 'Beth felt uncomfortable with someone behaving differently like that.' Even silent dissent wouldn't do. The only acceptable course of action was for Peggie to tamp down her embarrassment and strip — only then could a six-foot-tall man's belief that he is a woman remain intact. Did Searle ask Peggie how she felt? 'I didn't make that approach.' Instead, after Christmas, Searle sat down with Upton and filled in an official complaint in which (she has admitted on oath) she incorrectly asserted that Peggie had compared him to the trans rapist Isla Bryson. Then, against all disciplinary protocol, Searle emailed other doctors to rally support for Upton, telling them to avoid 'foot in mouth' misspeaks which might stop Peggie, who was instantly suspended, being punished. Each day we learnt new ways in which senior hospital staff had persecuted a nurse with a flawless record. Jamie Doyle, head of nursing, wanted Peggie reported to the police. Upton claimed to have noted earlier incidents in which Peggie's hostility towards him had endangered patients. But no one corroborated these grave claims and an IT expert who analysed Upton's phone testified that these were not contemporaneous notes but added after the Christmas Eve row. (Peggie was cleared of these and other allegations in a separate hospital disciplinary inquiry.) Why did all of these senior people fall over themselves to take Upton's side, even at the expense of truth? Because trans identity tops an all-important oppression hierarchy and the purest form of virtue is being a 'trans ally'. To prove this, both the head of diversity, Isla Bumba, and Searle, an A&E consultant, claimed neither knew Upton's sex, or even their own. 'I've never had my chromosomes tested,' said Bumba. Does Searle do this before prescribing the correct drug dosage for a female patient? Of course not. No one really believes such absurdity: they mouth it out of religious obeisance. At the base of that purity pyramid are women like Sandie Peggie: boring, menopausal, the ancillary people who confront biological sex in every backside they wipe. Working-class Peggie doesn't hold the received opinions: Russell scoured a seven-year-long private Facebook group of nurses Peggie had holidayed with to find that she'd reposted horrible jokes about the Pakistani floods, is against sharia and illegal migration, and was initially upset that her daughter was gay. The notion was: this 'bigot' doesn't merit rights. But just as a black person who makes antisemitic jokes or a trans woman who posts 'Die in a fire, TERF' still deserve protection against discrimination or violence, Peggie, whatever her views, has the right to undress at work without being watched by a man. Now the Peggie tribunal evidence has concluded, the judgment will come later this year and she is predicted to receive a substantial payout. But the case of the Darlington nurses — who also objected to a man changing with them — is scheduled for a full tribunal in October; a similar case involving a Muslim nurse is pending, while Jennifer Melle, a black nurse who was racially abused by a trans-identifying male paedophile in police custody because she referred to him as 'Mister', is still suspended by Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust. Four months after the Supreme Court clarified the meaning of sex, it is an outrage that public money is still being squandered while women fight for basic rights. Why does the Health and Safety Executive not remind employers of 1992 workplace laws which mandate single-sex changing? Why are NHS England and the NHS Confederation allowed by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to drag their feet? The ludicrous joke that sex is an unfathomable mystery has worn very thin.
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Telegraph
Gender-critical campaigners criticise NHS trans row tribunal
Gender-critical campaigners have accused the NHS health board at the centre of a transgender row of undermining the Supreme Court. Sandie Peggie is suing NHS Fife for unlawful discrimination after the nurse had to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a trans medic, at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on Christmas Eve 2023. At last week's hearing in Dundee, Jane Russell KC, the barrister representing NHS Fife and Dr Upton, repeatedly questioned the Supreme Court's ruling that a trans woman is a man. In April, the court ruled that the words 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' mean biological sex, biological man and biological woman regarding the Equality Act. But when Ms Russell was challenged by Naomi Cunningham, Ms Peggie's barrister, that the court had in fact determined that a 'trans woman is a man' for the purposes of the Equality Act, Ms Russell said she disagreed with the lawyer's 'summary' of the case's judgment. Judge Sandy Kemp went on to describe the case's meaning as a 'contentious matter', adding that its meaning was 'in dispute'. For Women Scotland has now weighed into the Dundee tribunal, saying it is 'concerned' about Ms Russell's comments in a letter to the hearing. Ther campaign group said: 'If the tribunal does not make it clear to the parties (and the viewing public) that 'what exactly For Women Scotland says' is in fact clear and settled law and not 'contentious', 'a hypothesis' or 'in dispute' then it may render the judgment open to appeal on any point where Dr Upton's sex is relevant.' It also listed three exchanges between the barristers, one in which Ms Russell argued that the Supreme Court judgment was an abstract case regarding representation on public boards in Scotland and did not concern lavatories. In a second exchange, on July 23, Mr Russell told the court: 'Dr Upton is not a man, she is a trans woman.' In response, Ms Cunningham said: 'Dr Upton is a trans woman and trans women are men, certainly for the purposes of the Equality Act as we know from For Women Scotland.' Finally, on July 24, Ms Russell said: 'Dr Upton is not a man. For Women Scotland [the case] doesn't say so.' The gender-critical group's letter to the tribunal judge said the first exchange was not 'factually correct', adding: 'We are surprised there was no correction by the tribunal. 'In the second and third exchanges, Ms Cunningham was factually correct in her statement that Dr Upton is a man under the Equality Act, in accordance with the For Women Scotland ruling by the Supreme Court. This should not be a point in dispute by the court, nor regarded as contentious or a hypothesis to be tested.' Ms Peggie is seeking financial compensation for 'harassment' and 'hurt feelings' from both Dr Upton and NHS Fife. The veteran nurse was placed on special leave in January last year after Dr Upton made allegations of bullying and harassment, and cited concerns about 'patient care'. Evidence hearings have now concluded and oral submissions will be heard in September.
