counting coots

So Springwatch is over. A show that infuriates and delights in equal measure. Packham has been great but that bloody Humble woman, her coprophilia and her personification, is incredibly annoying (but I suppose the robin-strokers need a figurehead...). However, it has to be forgiven all of this for the excellent work it does in bringing the natural world to the wider public. It's not aimed at me (and I dare say a fair few of you, dear readers) so my quibbles are irrelevant really. But I do have one point to raise.

Schedule one breeding species.

Now if I were to post information on some Little Ringed Plovers on the London Birders wiki in the breeding season I would get a slap (electronically of course, an e-slap perhaps) and the info would be taken down. If I were to just wander up to a nest of LRP's I would be breaking the law. The springwatch presenters are shown just wandering up to a new nest to have a look and show us the eggs in the nest, with the caveat that 'we only popped in - no harm was done'.

And it is at this point that they should have said that you - the general public - shouldn't be doing it. They've missed a trick, and really should have spelled it out. As with the Goshawks, the Chough, Marsh Harrier, Merlin etc.

Tsk tsk.