Sometimes, you really have to wonder. I’ve been occupied scanning old slides again this evening as Dawn’s busy on a Reiki course, so whilst I’ve been waiting for the scanner to perform its (slow) miracles I’ve been keeping an eye on social media – which is when I spotted this gem..

Seriously? F**k me, who knew that for thousands of years people have used various (mostly humane) methods to deter birds? Have the RSPB never heard of Scarecrows, or the farmers that set off shotgun cartridges on a timer – or Network Rail patrolling some of its stations like this? “Ethically dubious”?

If this is the desperate intellectual level some of our environmental groups are reduced to, you do have to start asking – what’s the point of you? What problems are you really going to solve with rubbish like this – and why on earth should we take you seriously?

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before arch HS2 critic Chris Packham piled in in his own unthinking fashion with this tweet.

Holding nature in ‘contempt’ by using birds to scare off birds? Talk about mental gymnastics! The sad thing is that knee-jerk rubbish like this only makes it easier for people to dismiss environmental groups as cranks. It gives ammunition to the opposition, nothing more, but nothing that Packham comes out with surprises me anymore. Let’s face it, a man who flies people half-way around the world on expensive bird-watching tours of the Gambia (for which he earns a pretty penny) trying to stop people in the UK from being able to travel on a carbon-neutral railway is the height of hypocrisy.

I’ll look forward to the next chapter of this madness, the RSPCA starting a campaign against people buying cats to scare away mice perhaps? For God’s sake – no-one tell them about Felix, the Huddersfield station cat!