I feel this is a box ticking exercise a general tightening up, which is a sort of a positive thing. Perhaps there SHOULD be a test to ensure shooters can tell a rook from a blackbird before they go blasting away at anything that moves?
Rest assured, licensing conditions are quite rigorous. There will always be a knob who does something that they shouldn’t but on the whole people value their license, once its gone its nye on impossible to get back - hence it is almost self regulating and the vast majority are normal day to day people who you would never imagine being a ‘Blood thirsty wildlife murdering hoodie yob’ - because hey guess what they’re not.
As smallholders I’m pretty sure the majority of us have experienced corvids taking eggs from nesting boxes or witnessed chicks being taken - this is life. What we witness goes on in the hedgerows on the songbirds we all like to see & hear, why Natural England removed the General Licenses in the manner they did beggars belief. A government body acting in this manner is not fit for purpose and of serious concern. The licenses may have not been perfect but they allowed country folk to go about their business and help control numbers of pest species - this is the avian equilavent of giving protected species status to rats & mice!!!
A classic example of bureaucrats getting hoodwinked by a loud opinionated minority, with serious ramifications - actually its worse because Tony Juniper (head of Natural England) is probably one such person.
As for the original question about confusion, there is none - with the newly introduced stop gap licenses issued they are so open to misinterpretation anyone shooting pigeons / corvids leaves themselves wide open to prosecution. As already stated, the vast majority of shooting folk are very law abiding so this isn’t something people are happy with and hence the issues being discussed (while all the time eggs/chicks continue to be taken).
Would be far simpler to just classify said bird species as pests and allow people to get on with it.