Well, nighthawks are a minor problem compared with "legal" non reporting. Dr Sam Hardy estimates there are 24K legal detectorists finding (per PAS, CBA, EH, archaeologists and a detecting forum survey) circa 30 recordable artefacts per year, which is 720,000 per year whereas so far, in 20 years (per PAS), they've only shown PAS 1.3 million.

Feel free to say that's somehow wrong or exaggerated or unjust, but as Prof David Gill has said: "We have to ask by how much it would have to be "wrong" to make the figures acceptable." My answer to that is "goodness knows" and so should everyone's be.

Anyway, the only reason I got drawn into this was to point out that all the good people who use TMA who take nothing, are in no way comparable. They aren't, and I think that should be made crystal clear.