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Posts Tagged ‘Scotland’

Footballer’s wife dies after botched operation

July 10th, 2009 | No Comments

The wife of the former Scotland football captain Colin Hendry died today following surgery to correct the botched liposuction procedure that almost killed her seven years ago.

Denise Hendry, who was 43, had been in intensive care at Salford Royal hospital for several weeks suffering from a meningitis-like infection after undergoing an operation to repair the damage.

She nearly died in April 2002 after the liposuction procedure at the private Broughton Park hospital in Preston, Lancashire, went badly wrong, leaving her with multiple complications.

Hendry, from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, fell ill just two days after the surgery and was treated for septicaemia at the Royal Preston hospital.

Her heart also stopped for four minutes as she went into a cardiac arrest following the botched operation. She suffered nine punctures to her bowel and colon, causing blood poisoning and multiple organ failure, and needed a 16-hour operation in May as part of the long recovery process.

Gustav Aniansson, the cosmetic surgeon who carried out the liposuction procedure, voluntarily applied to be removed from the General Medical Council’s register, and lawyers for the couple later secured a £300,000 damages settlement in November 2006.

Speaking afterwards, Hendry said: “I felt so bad when I thought Colin could have lost his wife and my children would have lost their mother. I felt overwhelming guilt at how stupid I’d been.”

She had been receiving treatment from a specialist in the unit of the National Intestinal Failure Centre, which is based at the hospital.

Her husband, the ex-Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers and Rangers central defender, had been at her bedside throughout the ordeal.

The couple have four children aged between 19 and nine.

Yesterday, Colin Hendry paid tribute to his wife and spoke of his family’s sense of loss.”Words cannot describe the desolation we feel,” he said.

“I cannot begin to imagine life without her, but we are a strong and devoted family and somehow, if only for Denise’s sake, we will get through.”

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Where to go wilder in Britain

July 10th, 2009 | No Comments

Scotland and Dartmoor are the only places to legally wild camp in Britain. But there are a few sites that offer a more rugged camping experience. Dixe Wills picks the best.

Find more unusual campsites in tomorrow’s Guardian Travel

Ah, the call of the wild. Unzipping your tent in the morning to discover you weren’t dreaming – you really are camped beside some tranquil mountainside tarn, or in a clearing in a mighty forest, or on a cliff top high above a sparkling sea. With a proper hot summer still on the cards, what could gladden the heart more than getting out into the British countryside with a tent and soaking it all up?

Except, of course, it’s not as simple as that. The enlightened Scots, who have long enjoyed a relaxed attitude to land access, have made wild camping legal more or less anywhere (with a few sensible caveats) since 2003. In the rest of Britain, however, the practice is only officially sanctioned in one area – a section of Dartmoor.

The good news is that there’s now a growing number of campsites south of the border that have begun to offer campers the chance to savour the joys of off-piste camping. Where these sites differ from the norm is that rather than providing beautifully tended croquet-flat lawns, electric hook-ups and hardstanding, they offer chunks of topography just as nature crafted it, open fires on which to incinerate your marshmallows and, typically, a compost loo for those campers who feel no compunction to imitate what bears do in the woods. It may not be wild camping in its purest form but it’s a darn good imitation.

Wales leads the way in wilder campsites, with southern England hot on their heels. The phenomenon, it seems, is yet to catch on in the north of England.

Here’s a selection of the best sites where you can go wild in the country.

Gwalia Farm, Cemaes, Machynlleth, Powys

A large area around a lake is given over to camping at Gwalia, an organic farm that enjoys some quite breathtaking views of Snowdonia. Closer at hand, there are wild orchids, buzzards, kites, nightjars, glow worms, and all manner of aquatic life to look out for, including an otter. Drinking and washing water comes from a natural spring, there are earth loos in the woods and, should you wish to wander, the farm is on the Cambrian Way, Glyndwr’s Way and the Dyfi Valley Way.

• Gwalia Farm. Adult £4, child £2; +44 (0)1650 511377.

Graig Wen Arthog, nr Dolgellau, Gwynedd

Graig Wen admits to playing host to a conventional campsite but, for four weeks a year, visitors are also given the choice of going further afield and pitching in secret meadows, sheltered glades or a high bluff with views out over the Mawddach estuary. Streams and dry stone walls forge their way over the fields and through the woods, while the facilities are suitably wild – extending only to something described as “a tree bog compost toilet”. Best not to ask, I think.

• Graig Wen. From 25 July to 21 August; adult £7 (£10 on Fri/Sat); child £3 (£5); discount offered for backpackers/cyclists; +44 (0)1341 250482.

Gwern Gof Uchaf, Capel Curig, Gwynedd

One for high altitude campers, Gwern Gof Uchaf is an exposed site directly beneath Snowdonia’s famous Tryfan peak and is part of a working hill farm stretching for 750 acres above the Ogwen valley. The Carneddau and Glyders summits can also be tackled from this base camp which is open all year, so you can even introduce your tent to some snow (it’s wonderfully insulating, you know). Comfort comes in the form of hot showers, close by.

• Gwern Gof Uchaf. Adult £4, child £3; +44 (0)1690 720294.

Glyn Y Mul Farm, Aberdulais, West Glamorgan

The river Dulais runs through Glyn Y Mul’s 18-acre wood, making it a memorable location for a bit of communing with nature. The owners particularly welcome grub-eating survivalists to their Lone Wolf Campsite but are also happy to accommodate visitors who merely want to get away from it all. Best of all, should everything go pear-shaped with your attempt to create a shelter from mud filtered through the shells of beech nuts, you can crawl out of the woods for a hot power shower.

• Glyn Y Mul Farm. Adult £5, child £2.50; +44 (0)1639 643204

Camping Wild Wales, Trefin, Pembrokeshire

This is a site whose owners’ mission statement importunes visitors to slough off their urban selves, “strip away those outer layers and feel the breeze of freedom”, so chilling out and relaxing are pretty much compulsory. Lodged halfway between St David’s and Fishguard, just off the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, there’s plenty of room to spread out your shelter of choice or you can take refuge in one of their tipis.

• Camping Wild Wales. Adult £7, child (4-14) £3; +44 (0)1348 837892.

Hole Station Campsite, Highampton, Devon

There are 45 acres of meadow and woodlands at Hole Station but only twelve pitches, making it a little piece of heaven for those who agree with Sartre’s maxim that hell is other people. Approached down a long private lane in a sumptuous, yet quiet, corner of Devon, it’s little wonder that Hole railway station, from which the site takes its name, has long since given up the ghost. You can also rent a tent – very useful if you’re travelling light on the Devon coast-to-coast route, for which Hole marks the halfway point.

• Hole Station Campsite. £12 per pitch (inc. 2 people), extra adults £4, U16s £3, dogs £1. Camp fire kit £5; +44 (0)1409 231266

Yellow Wood Bush Camp, nr Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire

The folk at Yellow Wood are very much in touch with their inner Ray Mears and offer all manner of courses on bushcraft and wilderness survival on their clutch of forested sites in the shadow of the Black Mountains. However, if you just want to bring along your tent, or string up a tarp or a hammock and do your own thing, that’s cool too. For that added wild touch, the precise location of their sites is not revealed until you’ve booked yourself in.

• Yellow Wood Bush Camp. Adult £5, child £3; +44 (0)7800 767519.

Ashwood Farm, East Grinstead, West Sussex

Proving that being within commuting distance of the capital is still no barrier to camping in the wilds, this farm near the Sussex/Surrey border provides a haven of sylvan tranquillity. It’s also a paradise for children who are free to race up and down the hill, build their own woodland wigwams, dens, shelters or fairy houses according to taste, or just idle away the hours on a tree swing. There’s also a big discount if you can arrive by public transport or under your own steam.

• Ashwood Farm. With car: adult £12; child £6. Without car: £8/£4. Fire kit £5. +44 (0)1342 316129

Dernwood Farm, Waldron, East Sussex

A small family-run farm, Dernwood has an 8-acre field in the woods in which you can pick your spot and another 60-odd acres of ancient forest to explore once you’ve set up camp. The only concessions to home comforts are a water tap and a recently installed loo in a nearby shed. For those who insist on being kept in touch with the outside world, newspapers can be delivered to the farmhouse, a ten-minute walk away. A fleet of wheelbarrows is also on hand for ferrying your gear through the woods.

• Dernwood Farm. Adult £6.50, child (5-15) £4.50, family (2 adults 2 children) £17.50; +44 (0)1435 812726.

And a final one for anyone who wants to try out a wild campsite in Scotland before heading off into the countryside beyond:

Duloch Hamlet, Inverkeithing, Fife

Offering what they euphemistically describe as “limited rustic facilities” (a sawdust toilet and a stand pipe), Duloch Hamlet is a mixture of clearings in woodland and meadows. There are fifteen acres of woods to get happily lost in and hides for watching badgers and deer. There’s also a herb garden if you fancy adding that final flourish to your al fresco feast, and a few pre-erected tents available if you prefer to travel ultra-lite.

• Duloch Hamlet. £6 per person; log kits £3; +44 (0)1383 417681.

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200 sick on virus-hit cruise ship

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Suspected norovirus outbreak investigated as medics treat majority of Marco Polo’s ill passengers on board at Highland port

Two hundred passengers have now shown symptoms of the vomiting bug aboard the Marco Polo cruise liner off the coast of Scotland, the ship’s operator, Transocean Tours, confirmed today .

The cruise line said four people were treated and discharged from Raigmore hospital in Inverness. They were admitted as a precautionary measure as all four were elderly, the company said.

A postmortem is to be carried out on a man who died yesterday during the suspected norovirus outbreak.

Roy Sillett, 74, is believed to have died after suffering a heart attack, but the examination will determine whether there is any link with the suspected norovirus, also known as the “winter vomiting bug”.

Transocean Tours, based in Bremen, Germany, said its medical team on the ship was dealing with an unconfirmed virus that caused a form of gastroenteritis, and the ship had been inspected by health officials.

Those aboard taken ill were being treated by a team of GPs and local nurses, and two people were taken to Raigmore hospital in Inverness yesterday for treatment. The ship was berthed in Invergordon, Easter Ross.

A Transocean Tours official said: “A very small number of people on board had suffered symptoms of gastroenteritis during the cruise but this is unrelated to the current outbreak and Port authorities gave the ship a clean bill of health when it docked at Tilbury.”

The ship began its cruise around Britain from Tilbury on Saturday. It had previously been on a cruise to Iceland.

There were 769 passengers and 340 crew on board and those not showing symptoms were let ashore today.

Dr Ken Oates, the interim director of public health at NHS Highland, told the Press Association: “NHS Highland is reassuring people that there is no risk to the health of the local community.”

Residents questioned the advisability of allowing passengers ashore, given that the norovirus spreads easily from person to person. The Cromarty Firth SNP councillor, Maxine Smith, said: “They have been allowed to go into local cafes and shops when apparently this virus is spread by touch. This is really concerning.”

The liner is halfway through a cruise around Britain and is scheduled to sail from Invergordon today to continue the voyage.

The norovirus is part of a group of viruses that are the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the UK, affecting up to a million people every year. It can survive for several days in a contaminated area, according to the NHS website.

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The Guardian guide to UK hotels

July 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

Use our interactive map to find your ideal place to stay – as reviewed by our expert Sally Shalam


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Murray burgers and flags in Dunblane

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

The weather had not been kind to Dunblane’s most visible tribute to Andy Murray. A high banner strung between two poles by the local bowling club had wilted in the heat and humidity, and all that could be seen of the handwritten message “Bowl Them Over, Andy!” was the tennis player’s name.

That was as showy as it gets in this small country town, a community that maintains a fierce but quiet pride in the 22-year-old local lad who has become the great British hope.

In the High Street, the local butcher’s was advertising a Murray Burger, and the optician, owned by Murray’s uncle, had a window display of plastic strawberries and tennis balls and glossy photographs of Andy and his brother Jamie, who is still in the mixed doubles tournament. Elsewhere, the good luck messages were even more discreet: A4 posters tucked in shop windows, chalk messages scribbled on pub noticeboards.

“In Dunblane we don’t get too carried away,” said Bernie Beattie, treasurer of Dunblane Sports Club, where Murray learned to play. “We’re really proud and really excited to see Andy do so well, and Jamie as well. I can’t wait to see the semi-final, and then hopefully the final. Fingers crossed. It’s doing great things for the club. We have tons of juniors turning up to play every day.”

Beattie, a lifelong member of the tennis club, has known the Murray boys since they were small. Her daughters went through school with them. The number of juniors applying to join the club jumped by 20% last year, and officials are expecting a similar Murray bounce this year.

“You could tell immediately that they were very talented,” she said. “They were watching their mum coaching as well as them being coached themselves. They were saturated in all things tennis from a very early age. You still see glimmers of what Andy was like as a youngster. He did have a temper. He didn’t like to lose. He had a real will to win, which you need.”

Outside, 15-year-old Cameron McMillan was getting ready for a knockabout on one of the courts. He plays for the club’s under-16 boys and said he had been inspired by Andy Murray’s success.

“It’s really good for us. You watch him play and that just makes you want to go out and play. I think he’s got a pretty good chance this time. At school, there’s lots of talk of Andy. They want him to do well. And Jamie came to open up our new hall. In Dunblane because we know both of them ‑ Jamie and Andy ‑ we want both of them to do just as well as each other. There’s no real favouritism.”

The locals don’t see much of Andy Murray these days. His mum, Judy, still lives in a smart estate on the town’s edge, and his grandparents are just a stone’s throw from the club where he and Jamie trained. But this town now knows tennis, and there are few here who don’t have an opinion on the form and progress of this year’s Wimbledon contenders.

“I think Andy has the game to beat Roddick,” said Tom McLean, manager of the Dunblane hotel, which will screen today’s match live, and serve free strawberries and cream. “There’s nobody who returns as well as Andy Murray. He’s hitting balls back across the net he shouldn’t even get to, because of his athleticism. His game has developed so much over the last year. Physically, he has improved, and more importantly his mental state has improved. He doesn’t get as flustered as he used to.”

Should he make the final, which McLean fully expects him to do, there will be free Pimm’s during the match and champagne afterwards, whether he wins or loses. He deserves nothing less, said McLean.

“To have a potential world champion from Dunblane – I mean there is no bigger tennis tournament than Wimbledon so that puts him at the top of the tree. To have a local hero, a young lad like Andy, he’s a real role model for all the kids. You won’t find him in here when he’s home. He’s a teetotaller, he’s an athlete. For Dunblane, it’s a great thing to have someone like him flying the flag. As a community we’ve had our troubles in the past but we’re thinking positively on all the good things we have just now. We have got a lot to be proud of.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by many in this 9,000-strong community. They have Andy Murray, and the new Miss Scotland, a local girl as well, and a fresh focus for a town long labelled as tragic after the school shootings of 1996, in which 18 died.

“It really is great to have such a positive thing to focus on,” said Irene Flaws, the local florist. “I did an interview with an American TV crew and they were talking about how Andy was at Dunblane primary school when the tragedy happened. And they said something like the playing had stopped that day but Andy has played on. And I thought that was a lovely way of putting it. Everybody is just so proud of him.”

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Shrinking sheep riddle solved

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Shorter, milder winters caused by global warming to blame for steady decrease in size of St Kilda sheep, experts say

The mysterious shrinking sheep of St Kilda sounds like a job for super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

The case involves a rare herd of wild sheep on the remote Scottish island – known in Scottish Gaelic as Hirta – that are refusing to bow to conventional evolutionary pressure, which says big is best. Instead, they have steadily decreased in size since the 1980s.

Scientists have now stepped in to solve the conundrum, and fingered the culprit as the new Moriarty of mankind: global warming.

The experts say shorter and milder winters mean that lambs do not need to put as much weight on during their first few months of life. Smaller animals that would have perished in harsh winters a few decades ago can now survive to their first birthday. As a result, the average weight of the sheep has dropped by 81g each year.

The difference is too small to see with the naked eye, but it is important because it shows how animal populations can respond to climate change. Tim Coulson, a biologist at Imperial College London who worked on the study, said: “If animals can respond [to climate change] and can respond fairly rapidly, then evolution could play a role in helping them to adapt.” The results appear in the journal Science.

Biologists have reported that several species of birds and fish are changing size and shape, which could be down to global warming. Coulson said it was difficult to say what the response of the St Kilda sheep could mean for other species.

Their island home, St Kilda, is just “vegetation and sheep” he said. In other cases, predators and competition for food from other animals complicate the picture and make it difficult to tease out the influence of changing climate.

The study looked at a herd of wild Soay sheep on Hirta that biologists have studied since 1985. Dogs are forbidden on the island, so the scientists acted as human sheepdogs to herd the animals, which are expert jumpers, towards areas where they could be weighed. “These aren’t fluffy white sheep, these are small and brown and wild animals,” Coulson said.

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RAF Tornado crash in Scotland kills two

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

F3 jet crashed in thick cloud at remote Argyll beauty spot

A Royal Air Force Tornado F3 jet crashed into a hillside today at a remote beauty spot in Argyll, killing both crew members.

The plane was one of two Tornadoes from RAF Leuchars, Fife, on a training flight when the crash happened at 11.45am in Glen Kinglas.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed both the pilot and navigator had been killed. Next of kin have been informed but their names have not been released.

A search and rescue operation was launched by helicopters from the HMS Gannett naval base and RAF Lossiemouth.

The crash happened close to the Rest And Be Thankful tourist spot near the village of Arrochar on the A83, west of Loch Lomond. Weather in the area at the time was said to be overcast with thick cloud and residents said planes appeared to have been flying much lower than usual today.

Andy Graham, 60, a retired rigger, said he saw two Tornados flying low. “We get jets on training exercises quite regularly. But today they seemed to be flying much lower than normal. We watched them fly along the loch, up through the glen and towards the Rest And Be Thankful.”

An RAF spokesman said there had been a small fire at the scene which the fire service dealt with.

The two-man F3 came into service with the RAF in the 1980s. The rear seat weapons systems officer controls the radar and defensive countermeasures systems for the pilot.

The Rest And Be Thankful is a pass and road junction between Loch Long and Loch Fyne. It takes its name from the inscription on a rough stone bench at its 260 metres (860ft) summit.

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RAF Tornado jet crashes in Scotland

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Rescuers dispatched to Argyll where fighter plane flew into hillside

A Royal Air Force Tornado jet crashed in a remote part of Scotland today.

The plane, believed to be from RAF Leuchars in Fife, hit a hillside in the Argyll countryside.

There were no details of the condition of the pilot and navigator. No civilians are understood to have been hurt.

Two ambulance crews and a specialist rescue team were attending, with air accident investigators to follow.

A Strathclyde police spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that police were called at 11.45am to a report of a plane crash near the Rest and Be Thankful, Arrochar. Police are arriving at the scene.”

Rest and Be Thankful is a tourist spot on the A83 Arrochar to Inveraray road, north-west of Loch Lomond.

No one at RAF Leuchars was immediately available for comment.

It is understood the Tornado F3 was on a training flight when it came down.

Search and rescue helicopters from the HMS Gannett naval base and RAF Lossiemouth were scrambled to search the countryside for the wreckage and crew.

The F3 came into service with the RAF in the 1980s.

The pilot sits in the front seat, while in the rear seat a weapons officer controls the planes radar and defence systems.

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Diageo to cut 900 jobs in Scotland

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

• Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow set to close
• Packaging operations reduced from three plants to two

Drinks group Diageo, home to Guinness, Captain Morgan and Tanqueray, is cutting 900 jobs in Scotland as it closes one of its Glaswegian distilleries and consolidates its packaging operations from three sites to two in a bid to slash costs.

The move is expected to reduce costs by £40m as Diageo battles with the impact of the recession on cash-strapped drinkers. Two months ago the world’s largest drinks maker announced that sales over the first quarter of the year were down 7%, and it had dropped its inventory by a million cases to meet slumping demand.

The company, which employs almost 4,000 in Scotland, said it will close its distillery in Port Dundas, Glasgow, which first opened its doors in 1811 and employs about 140 people. The plant is a grain spirit distillery producing 39m litres of alcohol a year, which finds its way into Diageo brands including Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff.

Diageo is also consolidating its packaging operations from three sites, at Kilmarnock, Glasgow and Leven in Fife, to two sites. It will close the plant at Kilmarnock, which employs about 700 people, but said it will create 400 new jobs at its Leven facility. That is likely to come as little comfort to workers in Kilmarnock, however, as Leven is almost 100 miles away.

The company will also outsource some of its warehousing operations, leading to further job losses. The cost of the restructuring will be £120m, which the company expects to take next year.

The new cost-cutting comes on top of a plan outlined by Diageo in February in which the company said it hoped to reduce costs by £100m in the year to the end of June 2010 at a one-off cost of £200m.

Overall that revised plan and the new closures will generate £120m of cost savings in 2010 and a further £40m by 2012, but cost £200m this year and £210m in 2010.

The company added that it is still mulling a major rationalisation of its Guinness business in Ireland, although it gave no further details other than to say any restructuring will involve all three Diageo breweries in the country.

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Puffins get satnav to trace decline

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

Severin Carrell meets the zoologist investigating the Farne islands’ fall in puffin numbers


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Meet the satnav seabird

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

Stubby seabird with comedy beak to help scientists investigate steep decline in seabird populations across Britain

Short, stubby and gifted with a distinctive comedy beak, the puffin is an iconic bird. But seabird may also be the bellwether for a crisis in the seas around Britain.

The puffin now has a new role, helping scientists investigate the causes of a steep decline in seabird numbers across the British Isles using miniaturised digital tracking devices, including one borrowed from in-car satellite navigation systems.

Data for last year shows puffin numbers suddenly and sharply crashed. Scientists found that on the most significant North Sea colonies, puffin populations fell by a third or more. Adult puffins were malnourished, with large numbers washed up dead along the UK’s coast.

Confronted by other evidence of a significant change in the North Sea’s health, which has led to declines of up to 40% in seabird numbers in just eight years, conservationists have begun a series of urgent studies into its possible causes. Many believe climate change is the main culprit.

On the Farne islands, a low-lying archipelago off the Northumberland coast 50 miles north of Newcastle, puffins are now being fitted with equipment which should help plug large gaps in scientific knowledge about the species and, in turn, other threatened seabirds.

Scientists will use three different devices on up to three dozen puffins: GPS monitors; “geo-locators” which work differently; and time and depth recorders.

They will monitor how and where they feed and behave once they leave their burrows on the Farnes, and track their movements while they winter at sea. Each puffin will carry only one small device which will be attached with super-strength glue onto its back.

Food is a critical issue: zoologists believe last year’s population slump – when numbers plummeted on the Farnes from 58,000 in 2003 to just 38,000 – is closely tied to a collapse in their main food source, the sandeel.

Populations of the slender, silvery fish, whose availability may be crucial to the puffins’ long-term survival, have been in decline since the 1990s because of heavy trawling for fishfarm feed and exposure to the changes in plankton distribution brought about by rising sea temperatures.

Puffins nest in dark, dry burrows that the birds carve out each spring from the soft, sandy earth, shaded by sea campion, nettles and coarse, hardy grasses. Their behaviour on land and within sight of the islands is well understood. However at sea, scientists have been largely guessing.

Dr Richard Bevan, a zoologist with Newcastle university who is leading the National Trust research on the Farnes, said: “All we can record at the nests is the number of chicks, how quickly the chicks are growing and the numbers that fledge, but what we don’t know is what they do as soon as they fly away.

“Puffins can theoretically be foraging anywhere within a 60km radius of the islands, which is a huge area for us to cover. But the further they have to forage the more energy they use, and the intervals between when they feed their chicks will increase, so chicks will be fed less and are less likely to do well.”

The results of the hi-tech monitoring will help conservationists establish whether puffins have regular feeding grounds and allow them to protect those places. Evidence that puffins spread across a wide area would present a more difficult problem, perhaps increasing pressure for a more substantial conservation effort.

That information will also help protect the significant Arctic tern, sandwich tern, guillemot and shag colonies on the Farnes, which are home to approximately 160,000 adult seabirds and their offspring.

This research could prove crucial. Last month, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the UK’s most authoritative conservation research agency, reported that about 600,000 seabirds had been lost since 2000, 9% of the total population. There are now 40% fewer black-legged kittiwake – another bird that feeds on sandeels – and 33% fewer European shags breeding in the UK than 40 years ago. On Shetland, globally significant colonies have collapsed.

Yet this year’s research so far has given Bevan and the trust grounds for optimism. Their trawls for sandeels around the Farnes suggested the tiny fish were, this year at least, relatively abundant. Puffins are flying in – their short wings urgently flapping 400 times a minute, with sandeels dangling from their beaks.

Bevan believes last year’s population crash may be explained by unusual north-easterly winds during last year’s breeding season, which may have cooled the seas at the wrong time. Herring – a fish which competes for sandeels – were also abundant, and may have out-eaten the puffins.

Last year’s population crash may be a blip, not a trend. But it does indicate there are changes in the marine environment which scientists do not yet understand, Bevan added.

“It’s a warning sign. I’m willing to bet that this year numbers would be up from last year, but not up to pre-2008 levels. The problem is, we don’t know what’s happening out there. There’s a change in the ecology of the North Sea. What the implications are of that, we have no idea.”

Seabirds in trouble

Black-legged kittiwake

Its numbers have fallen by 35% since 2000 due to declines in sand eels caused by overfishing and climate change. Breeding success has fallen markedly on the North Sea.

Herring gull

One of the UK’s best known gulls, notorious for scavenging from trawlers and city dumps, but is a new entry to the UK “red list” of threatened birds because its numbers are sharply falling, down by 69% since 1969 and 33% since 2000.

Arctic skua

This relatively rare inshore seabird was put on the UK’s “red list” of threatened species this year as its numbers are declining rapidly: 2,100 were counted in 2002, but it has declined by 57% since then.

Seabirds on the up

Great skua

Its numbers have rocketed by nearly 400% since 1969 and by 56% in the last eight years alone – but at the expense of others. The large scavenger has outmuscled the herring gull for trawler discards and preyed on Arctic skuas. Cuts in discarded fish suggest it will increasingly have to steal food from other seabirds to survive.

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Pensioner second Briton to die from swine flu

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

An elderly man from the Glasgow area has become the second Briton to die from swine flu.

The 73-year-old, who had other very serious underlying health problems and has not yet been named, died at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley on Saturday night. He had been in intensive care for 15 days, health officials said.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, said: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the patient at this tragic and very sad time. The family have asked for the patient’s identity to be kept private.

“Although it is concerning that the patient had swine flu, we are aware that the patient had very serious underlying health issues.”

A family spokesman said: “Our beloved relative was private in life and we would ask that his privacy continues to be respected.”

The first Briton to succumb to the H1N1 virus, Jacqui Fleming, also died at the Royal Alexandra after giving birth prematurely to her third child. She was the first person outside the Americas to die after contracting the virus.

Fleming also had significant underlying health problems and had been critically ill for several weeks before she died.

Officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus appears to be relatively mild.

The latest official figures show that 4,322 Britons have so far contracted the virus, with significant outbreaks now in Birmingham, London and the Glasgow area, but health experts believe the real figure will be much higher.

In the US, specialists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimate that at least 1 million Americans may have had swine flu and not been diagnosed, although the official figures put confirmed US cases at 27,717, with 127 deaths.

However, the virus is now spreading quickly in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter – the traditional season for flu epidemics.

The last update of the World Health Organisation put total cases at 59,814 with 263 deaths.

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Scottish man dies from swine flu

June 28th, 2009 | No Comments

73-year-old man from Glasgow, who had been in intensive care for 15 days, is second Briton to die from swine flu virus

An elderly man from the Glasgow area has become the second Briton to die from swine flu.

The 73-year-old, who had other very serious underlying health problems and has not yet been named, died at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley late on Saturday night. He had been in intensive care for 15 days, health officials said.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, said: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the patient at this tragic and very sad time. The family have asked for the patient’s identity to be kept private.

“Although it is concerning that the patient had swine flu, we are aware that the patient had very serious underlying health issues.”

A family spokesman said: “Our beloved relative was private in life and we would ask that his privacy continues to be respected as we try to come to terms with our loss.”

The first Briton to succumb to the H1N1 virus, Jacqui Fleming, also died at the Royal Alexandra after giving birth prematurely to her third child. She was the first person outside the Americas to die with the virus.

Fleming also had significant underlying health problems, and had been critically ill for several weeks before she died. Her baby, named Jack by her partner, William McCann, died the following day.

Health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus appears to be relatively mild, despite its rapid transmission around the world.

The latest official figures show that 4,322 Britons have so far contracted the virus, with significant outbreaks now in Birmingham, London and the Glasgow area, but health experts believe the real figure will be much higher.

In the United States, specialists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimate that at least one million Americans may have had swine flu and not been diagnosed, although the official figures on Friday put confirmed US cases at 27,717, with 127 deaths.

However, the virus is now spreading quickly in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter – the traditional season for flu epidemics.

In Australia, where confirmed cases stood at 3,280, four people have now died, all with underlying health problems. There have been 21 deaths reported by the World Health Organisation in Argentina and seven in Chile. The last WHO update put total cases at 59,814 with 263 deaths.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


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