SINCE the RSPB would try to stop the world from turning just to preserve the nesting site of a single pair of birds, how can it justify turning an area of the Flow Country into a bird-free zone while it builds a structure that continues to be vehemently opposed by the entire community at the heart of the Forsinard reserve?
The area I refer to, the Dubh Lochan trail, was once promoted as a place where visitors could see breeding golden glovers, greenshank and hen harriers, but now that it has been trashed by diggers, pile drivers and people in hi-vis jackets - not to mention helicopters shifting building materials around - these birds will have to look elsewhere for a nesting site.
At Forsinard the charity's priorities have switched from birds to bog plants, which now appear to be more important on this reserve, and upon asking a senior manager of the RSPB how such a violent intrusion on breeding grounds can possibly be right, I was met with an air of indifference. He smugly informed me it was all legal and the "minimal" numbers of breeding birds were unlikely to be affected by this construction work. So it's OK for them to build on the fragile Flow Country but no one else can - especially wind farms.
I wonder how the dedicated RSPB members who travel to this far-away, isolated location will view this change in attitude? Or will they be swayed by the hypocritical spin the RSPB seems to deploy at every opportunity these days in order for it to maintain a reputation that should, in principle, be about the protection of birds not the glorification of moss.
Mrs Linda Bower,
Station Cottage, Forsinard.
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