A Touch 'Pestoff'?

Now I confess I'm one of those who occasionally gets out of bed the wrong side some mornings - today might be one of them.

The post duly arrived - obviously some sort of wild life magazine/advertising judging by what I could see at a distance, so dutifully ignored until lunchtime.. Wait a minute - it's ME 4720 - bearing a full back cover ad for a rodent proof bird feeder - what the dickens has that to do with model engineering? Well it makes a change from the ad leaflets about funeral services that appear in the poly sleeve - why do they send them to me - late seventies - I'm too young and crabby for that yet!

My biggest objection to this detritus is that I pay a subscription for a magazine with model engineering content (as I have since 1959) - not content like this; if I want that sort of content I'll subscribe to an appropriate body like RSPB et al.

Am I alone in this view? Is this Morton's new policy in operation to deter relevance from the magazine? What do others think?

Overheated and disgruntled of mid Cambria.

I am bewildered.

Neil

Well as the advertising revenue also helps pay for the mags and the amount of pages given over to adverts seems to have dropped off a lot over the last couple of years I expect the publishers are grateful for any income regardless of subject matter.

Look on the bright side at least it was not an article on how to make a bird feeder that would have taken up proper editorial pages

I'm just happy that I got a Red Kite to take food off the lawn yesterday.

No doubt an irrelevant ad in any of the series, not just ME; but at least the advertising does book-end the publication, not break up the articles.

I wonder if it's a sign of the bigger traders able to pay hefty paper-rent moving more to their own web-sites, which would be bad news for any journal partly relying on that income.

Good news about your Red Kite, Jason!

I gather these birds are now spreading quite widely.

... even without people devoting their workshops to fabricating high-precision bird-feeders.

Was it the robin , Robin, that got you so incensed?

Like Robin I thought what the ---- is going on ? I do understand that ads help to keep the mag going, I hope the product is made in the UK ! The one thing missing that is a HUGE nuisance with bird feeders is the seed dropped on the ground by feeding birds that then attracts RATS ! There is no collector to stop that ! ! ! Why try to climb up to the food - just sit below and it will fall like manna from heaven ! Red Kites are quite common here as well ! Near Hunstanton. Noel.

I beleive they were let free some years ago at Harewood house near Harrogate. We ride out past there regularly on the Motorcycle & there are lots of them flying around.

We have 2 regulars that fly over our Village most days. On Saturday there were 4 of them, the Crows are always trying to attack them. I guess there territory or nest protecting. They are a sight to behold with a 5 foot wingspan.

Steve.

Caught the missus reading my ME this morning. Imagine my astonishment! I thought, has it reached a wider audience?

Nah! She wants a flipping bird feeder now!

Thank you all for your comments thus far, and as you know all weeks start with Moanday!

To be clear, I have no issue with relevant advertising at all - financially it necessarily has it's place; we've seen plenty of it over the decades where it has had direct use/applicability to what we do in our hobby. For me the line is crossed when it is neither relevant or directly useful to us as in the current case, and I object to paying for the 'privilege' under those circumstances.

Kite flying now - for those of you blessed with red kites, locally here in Wales we frequently see vertical stacks eight or ten, sometimes more, circling overhead, and often just over roof level - a wonderful site. Down at Rhayader at the feeding site they regularly feed 500 - 700 plus every afternoon and that is worth a visit if you get a chance.

Adverts.... I have a 1994 copy of ME to hand, and there are 23 pages of adverts, 4 of which are small ads and only a couple of the pages were to do with the then Argus publishers. Lots of long-forgotten ME suppliers...

Compare with the 11 pages of advertising in the Pestoff Special, of which 3.1/2 pages are to do with Mortons.

I know diddley-squat about the advertising industry, but it seems that paper magazines are simply not attracting the advertising that they used to; it seems that in today's FaceAche world that AI-directed advertising specific to the reader of the Interweb stuff is more cost-effective to them.

On the red kite topic, I had an amazing incident a while ago when I was out cycling. I had just moved out slightly to avoid some road kill in front of me, when a Red Kite swooped low over me from behind, almost hitting my helmet as it passed. In an incredible aerobatic manoeuvre, it dived on to the road kill a couple of feet in front of me and scooped it up; I actually heard its talons scraping on the tarmac before it exited, stage left. It almost became roadkill itself... Beautiful birds, it's wonderful to see them.

Ahh...Red Kites...beautiful birds...they are my wife's all time favourite...we first saw them in numbers while holidaying in Wales. We were on the railway from Devil's bridge to that well known seaside town that I can never pronounce nor spell...Abersw???? The guide told us that the birds had been added to the area in the past but were now getting too large in numbers which might need addressing. This was perbaps 10 years ago, not sure if anything was done about them, hope not.

We have recently moved home and viewed our fair share of properties around our chosen area. They say that when you find the right home you feel it as you walk in or even as you arrive. That was certainly the case for my wife and I, firstly we saw two classic cars the same model as mine, they are faily rare these days. Then as we parked and walked to the front door my wife spotted a red kite circuling above, a sign to her.. once we walked in we were hooked. Now in our new home Red Kites are a daily event, I love their distinctive call...few weeks back I threw the remains of some bread onto the lawn. While washing up a large shadow flashed across my vision followed by many smaller birds scattering. Not sure if the kite was going for the bread or some of the fledgings in the group...it was a sight to see, having such a large bird so close... The neighbours tell me to throw some raw chicken out when I see the kites above as they will swoop down to get the meal. I guess its something the villagers have been doing for years.

Yep, we got this house move right...as I finished typing this the distinctive call is once again overhead...🙂

Pete

As there seems to be an interest I hope this won't pest anyone off too much

Hi, I suppose if there weren't enough traders wishing to pay for a back page advert that you would like to see, you could've had a blank back page instead, personally it really doesn't bother me, unless adverts start to replace the content that I'm paying for.

As far as JasonB's video of Red Kites are concerned, I could have sent him a video of bats flying around last night, and keeping my security light on. It was however, fascinating to see the speed and the twists and turns they do, but did look a little ghostly as the light shone on the underside of their wings.

Regards Nick.

Funeral services? We're all going to need them sooner or later, cos' summat will get yer! Just duck when the axe swings! Sorry, couldn't resist this.

Come out of Machynlleth last week I saw around ten kites circling a field then around three dropped down below the hedge line within a few seconds they rose up one had caught something next thing there was a scrap taking place with several trying to snatch the prize !

Bwlch Nant yr Arian Visitor Centre is where Peter is referring to they can also be seen in large numbers at Rhayader which is a little further away

H

Surprised that so many are in favour of Red Kites, when they predate so many indigenous smaller birds.

Since they moved into our area, there are very few small birds around.

Shades of rabbits in Australia., and mink.

Seemed a good idea at the time to introduce anon native species!

Howard

I don't particularly mind the adverts but the one time I came close to cancelling my subscription was when a previous editor padded out an article with pictures of an empty car boot and then another picture of something in the car boot. That was a very low point for me.

More likely there is nothing for small-birds to eat. Intensive agriculture generally removes habitat and bumps off most of the insects by spraying. Most UK land is managed, which is good for us but not the wild-life. Global warming is altering patterns too.

Dave

You do know, Howard, that red kites are native to the UK?

Like Dave, I doubt red kites, which prefer to scavenge rather than hunt, are having much impact on our populations of Passeriformes. If they were, then there would be no need for sparrowhawks to have evolved into the speed machines they are, and they would be being actively displaced by red kites as hunters of small birds.

Red kites can, however, have an impact on populations of certain ground nesting birds. "Bird tables" can reduce this impact.

The Red Kite is finally becoming a local bird. I suspect a pair is now nesting locally. It is a big change from watching for hours just outside Tragaron 58 years ago just to see one.

My complaint about the advert is lack of mention on feeding the local Sparrow Hawks. They frequently inspect my feeders and sometimes get fed.

JA