When will this end? Yet another poisoned buzzard has been discovered in Scotland, and has tested positive for the banned pesticides Carbofuran and Aldicarb, according to government scientists at SASA.
Northern Constabulary have put out a carefully-worded press statement, saying the poisoned bird was retreived ‘from hill ground near Bridge of Brown”, which is on the A939 road between Grantown on Spey and Tomintoul, inside the Cairngorms National Park. They do not say when the buzzard was discovered, nor who owns the land where it was discovered. The culture of secrecy surrounding criminal raptor persecution continues.
You will not be surprised to learn that there is a prominent sporting estate that covers ‘hill ground near the Bridge of Brown’, although of course, their proximity to the incident does not imply they are responsible for this incident – no, no, no, its obviously an unhappy geographical coincidence. Northern Constabulary are investigating so no doubt the real criminals will soon be uncovered and brought to justice.
Thank goodness our government took such a tough line against the raptor persecutors during the last parliamentary session, eh? Otherwise we’d be seeing more of these incidents on a regular basis….
Northern Constabulary press statement: http://www.northern.police.uk/News-and-Media/news-item.htm?item_id=PR3316_2011
BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-13544977
Raptor Persecution UK 
There are actually three estates with their boundaries meeting at Bridge of Brown. It doesn’t take much research for Joe Bloggs to work out which estates I’m talking about.
The three estates with a boundary line at Bridge of Brown are Glenlochy Moor Estate, Glenlivet Estate and Dorback Estate, says Who Owns Scotland (thanks Andy!).
A reminder about speculation on location of a buzzard poisoning…buzzards and golden eagles are regular carrion eaters…their method of feeding involves gorging on meat in situ….[an exception to that is the red kite, which often snatches a piece of meat then flies off to a feeding post to consume it there]…
Poisons such as carbofuran and aldicarb [carbamates] are highly toxic to buzzards [and humans!]and the gorging means that most of the poison on a bait will have been consumed.Death is quick. Most buzzards [and eagles] are found within a short distance of a bait…it is vanishingly unlikely that such a poisoned bird will make it any further than a short glide once its ingested or come into contact with a carbamate. Most poisoners use far more poison than is necessary, making a quick death even more likely.
Having said all that…a suspiciously large number of poisonings have occurred close to estate boundaries – the poisoners know that this will take the heat off any particular estate.
In the early 90s the Agriculture Depts, who’s duty it is to investigate misuse of pesticides would search all neighbouring estates – a policy which caught several poisoners.
I was in that area just the other week and watched two Golden Eagles soaring quite low just to the right of the photo. I hope the’re still about when I next visit. One was a last year’s bird, the other which came to mob it, a sub adult or adult.