Section:GDN 1J PaGe:7 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 18:18 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Tuesday 30 July 2019 The Guardian •
7
The Victorian naturalist Alfred
Russel Wallace once called feathers
“the masterpiece of nature”
and “the perfectest venture
imaginable”. Grammar aside,
you can see what he meant.
The obvious expression of it is
their gift of fl ight. Take the young
swifts fl ashing over our garden.
Once fl edged and free of their
nests, they may not land until they
themselves breed two years hence.
They may be on the wing, here or
over Africa, for 22 months, fl ying
500,000km and more.
Such feats don’t even begin to
explore the power of feathers as
insulation. Yet they have enabled
birds, as represented by emperor
penguins, to breed during the
Antarctic winter, sitting on a single
egg in temperatures as low as -70 C.
All of this is highly impressive –
unlike, it must be said, the feathers
on the blackbird in my garden.
In the roaring temperatures last
week she took to stretching fl at
on the ground, beak wide open,
head cocked fractionally to one
side, crown feathers lifted, wings
splayed, tail spread and her body
plumage fl uff ed up like a feather
duster. At her rear there is a fl ash of
the bare pink skin on the pygostyle- the “parson’s nose” on a plucked
chicken – which evokes the scrawny
and naked dinosaur hidden beneath
all that scruff y plumage.
The action may look strange, but
it takes an even more bizarre form in
wood pigeons, which occasionally
lie alongside the blackbird, panting
incessantly, wings raised like fl ags,
and the whole creature slumped
and looking as helpless as if it
had just taken a load of buckshot.
In truth this behaviour, which is
highly seasonal, is performed by
many birds as a sort of therapy.
It is often referred to as
“sunbathing” but it is intended
to counter one of birds’ best-kept
secrets – the burden of louse fl ies,
mites and chewing lice, the fungi
and the bacteria that live in the
warm moist conditions of the
body down, where they eat the
feathers. More than 150 species
of invertebrate ectoparasite are
known, and a single bird may
have 12 varieties in its feathers ;
by exposing them to direct sunlight
it reduces their eff ects.
Mark Cocker
Suzanna van Moyland misses the
scientifi c point when she criticises
moth trapping ( Letters , 27 July).
If we are to overturn the signifi cant
decline in moth numbers, we need
to understand what is still out there.
It is not just a matter of seeing
the odd moth. We need to know
numbers, species, locations and
time of year, and we need to know
them year in, year out. This enables
us to track changes in the size
and location of populations, and
provides necessary evidence for
targeted conservation eff orts.
Unfortunately most moths fl y by
night so the counting methods used
for butterfl ies are not available.
C onservation requires the
sustained science provided by those
who catch, photograph, identify
and release. It is not helped by
well-meaning anthropomorphism.
Simon Rushall
Worce ste r, Worce ste rshire
- Due to an editing error an article
mistakenly referred to the new
president of Latvia, Egils Levits, as
the president of the country’s Riga
Jurmala music festival ( Harmony in
Latvia , 26 July, page 33). - An editorial was wrong to
describe David Davis as a former
home secretary; Davis was shadow
home secretary from 2003 to 2008
( Rendition , 29 July, page 2, Journal).
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
[email protected] or The readers’ editor,
Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU; alternatively
call 020 3353 4736 from 10am to 1pm Monday to Friday
excluding public holidays. The Guardian’s policy is to correct
signifi cant errors as soon as possible. For more information
on the readers’ editor’s offi ce and the Guardian editorial
code, see gu.com/readers-editor.The excellent obituary of Bryan
Marshall (25 July) failed to mention
his episode of Granada TV’s A Family
at War. I had a few lines in the episode
where he played a Polish soldier
called Stashek; he was brilliant but
it says something about this country
that he had to go to Australia for
work. The list goes on; Del Henney
died this year too – such a waste.
Chris Sullivan
Pinner, London- Jacob Rees-Mogg’s list of rules for
his staff ( Rees-Mogg Esq bans metric
and hopes never to hear ‘hopefully’ ,
27 July) betrays his own lack of
accuracy. Full stop is two words, not
one; he has misspelt privy counsellor;
and, as any touch typist knows, the
double space after full stops went out
with manual typewriters, as it is not
required when using a PC.
Cherry Weston
Wolverhampton, West Midlands - Are we now required to specify
our light bulbs in horsepower?
Peter Redman
Dorchester, Dorset - Mike Hine ( Letters , 29 July) might
want to avoid Screwfi x in Oxford.
In the space of a couple of minutes
on Saturday I was addressed as fella,
chap, guy, buddy and mate by just
one counter assistant. A simple
Esquire would have suffi ced.
Gabriel Brodetsky
Beckley, Oxfordshire - What a disappointing Monday
morning in this new era! How we miss
that picture of the prime minister
attending church.
Roger Hill (Canon)
Littleborough, Lanc ashire - Facial recognition cannot tell my
twin sons apart on Facebook ( The
briefi ng , 29 July ).
Lesley Barnes
Greenford, London
As committed supporters of fair
trade , we feel your correspondents
( Letters , 27 July) missed the point
of “ The death of fair trade? ” (The
long read, 23 July) which showed
how large corporations are trying
to circumvent fair trade and
undermine the highly successful
Fairtrade mark with their own “fairly
traded” and the like. Rest assured,
the Fairtrade mark remains an
absolutely trustworthy guarantee
of internationally agreed standards.
Tim Gossling blames the EU for
“not allowing” the production of
Divine chocolate in Ghana. This
is not true. The EU is primarily a
trading bloc, it imposes tariff s on
products from outside that bloc.
That’s what trading blocs do.
It benefi ts UK manufacturers and
farmers, too. No wonder the TUC,
CBI and NFU are all appalled at
the thought of similar tariff s being
slapped on our products after Brexit.
As for the importance to
producers, we refer you to “ No guns,
no drugs, no atrocities, no rape.
No murder. Just bananas... ” (The
Observer, 25 February 2018), which
shows how important farmers and
communities in Colombia know fair
trade to be. And we can buy their
bananas at the Co-op in the heart
of this small South Yorkshire town.
Joy and Richard Webb
Penistone, Sheffi eldI was struck by a possibly
generational divide in my response
to I Am Nicola, awarded fi ve stars
by Lucy Mangan (23 July). I cannot
deny the acting was impressive and
it was absorbing , but I cannot agree
that Adam is a controlling monster.
He is tormented by jealousy and
insecurity – common human failings- but he admits he has a problem and
expresses the desire to change.
Perhaps he had been saying that
for years and done nothing but I felt
Nicola should at least have given
him a chance to get help. Her main
accusation is that he doesn’t make
her happy. First , no one has a right
to happiness, which is a rare blessing
that comes at you in fl eeting,
precious moments, if you are lucky.
Second , no one is responsible
for another’s happiness. How is
that neediness any diff erent from
Adam’s hints at suicide? Human
relationships are tough to negotiate.
This man was redeemable. I worry
that men will wonder what is the
point in admitting vulnerability and
the desire to reform, if they will be
rejected anyway for failing to fulfi l
the impossible obligation to make
someone happy?
Susan Seager
London
Established 1906Country diary
Claxton,
Norfolk
Moth trapping helps
conservation eff orts
Already missing the
churchgoing May
Placing trust in
the Fairtrade mark
Let men be free to
admit vulnerability
- If you care about conserving
these species, moths require more
understanding and monitoring,
not to be “left alone”. The original
article ( Country diary , Journal,
20 July) did not explain the process
or the steps to take to avoid
harming their catch, but responsible
trappers would take these steps.
So, please, trap moths but only do
so after understanding why and
how to do it.
Take precautions to ensure your
moths are released alive, learn to
identify your moths correctly, and
always share accurate data with
your county recorder, so that the
collective eff orts of moth trappers
around the country can record
species ranges, range shifts and
declines to produce evidence-based
conservation strategies.
One article won’t produce an army
of careless, harmful moth trappers,
but it might spark the interest of
future conservationists. So a plea –
be curious and learn about nature
so that we can better protect it.
Dr Kate Durrant
Beeston, Nottinghamshire
[email protected]
@guardianlettersTwitter: @gdncountrydiary
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