[va-richmond-general] Re: UK wild bird numbers continue to fall | Environment | The Guardian
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- Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:06:51 +0000 (UTC)
Guess that didn't work. I will send a link instead.
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From: "Margaret O'Bryan" <catbird329@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 11:59:04 AM
Subject: [va-richmond-general] UK wild bird numbers continue to fall |
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UK wild bird numbers continue to fall
New figures show populations of farmland birds at record low, with woodland
birds also experiencing a 24% decline
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Comments ( 150 )
• James Meikle
• guardian.co.uk , Thursday 20 January 2011 14.15 GMT
• Article history
A song thrush"At once a voice arose among/ The bleak twigs overhead/ In a
full-hearted evensong/ Of joy illimited ... " - Hardy's Darkling Thrush
Photograph: Rex Features/BYB
Populations of wild birds in the UK are falling dramatically with even slight
recent recoveries apparently stalled, government figures showed today.
Only seabird populations remain comfortably above 1970 levels, while farmland
bird numbers continue to plunge from a brief mid-1970s peak to half those of 40
years ago.
Habitat changes responsible for fewer nesting sites and food shortages were
blamed last summer for sharp English farmbird losses but the reasons for the
decline in woodland birds are less clear, according to the RSPB .
However research led by the British Trust for Ornithology has suggested
agricultural intensification has also hit birds favouring wet grassland and
moorland. Less vegetation cover and scrub, overgrazing by deer, more drainage
of nearby farmland and changing winter climate may all be factors in the
woodland bird decline.
Some farmland birds, such as the grey partridge, turtle dove, starling, tree
sparrow, corn bunting and yellow wagtail have declined by over 70% over the
period of official monitoring based on annual surveys of breeding sites and
other data relating to 121 species. But wood pigeon and jackdaw populations
have doubled and stock dove and greenfinch numbers risen by 50%.
Among woodland birds, huge falls have been recorded for wood warbler, willow
tit, tree pipit, lesser spotted woodpecker, blackbird, dunnock, song thrush and
tawny owl, among others. Yet black cap, great spotted woodpecker, green
woodpecker, nuthatch and long-tailed tit are thriving.
Overall figures for water and wetland birds, where comparative figures have
existed only since the mid-1970s, have been more stable, although here too
there are successes and failures. Species that are used to slow flowing and
standing water have increased by 73%, while the index for those preferring wet
grassland has fallen by 56% and those favouring fast-flowing water is 17% down.
Reedbed birds – including reed warbler and reed bunting – have shown a general
recovery until recently.
Seabirds such as the guillemot remain relatively abundant, but kittiwakes and
arctic skuas are in decline, the figures show.
Wintering wildfowl and wader populations remain well above mid-1970 levels but
have fallen from 1990s peaks. European white-fronted goose, mallard, pochard,
pintail, scaup, oystercatcher, redshank and ringed plover are among those in
decline, but there are more than tenfold increases in Svalbard light-bellied
Brent goose and gadwall and a six-fold rise in black-tailed godwit. Populations
of wild birds
Mark Avery, the RSPB's conservation director, said: "It is staggering that
farmland birds, such as the turtle dove and lapwing, have reached such a low
ebb. But the good news is that we know how to turn around these declines."
A secure future for farmland wildlife rested with farmers being financially
rewarded for managing land in an environmentally friendly way, through
agri-environment schemes, he said.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is currently
reviewing key entry level stewardship (ELS) payments to farmers , which cover
70% of England's farmland. "Defra only has to tweak ELS a little to ensure a
recovery in farmland birds such as skylarks and corn buntings," said Avery.
The RSPB said a "staggering" 50 of 250 species occuring regularly in Britain
were now on a growing "red" list of species whose conservation was a concern,
the latest being the cuckoo.
Richard Benyon, minister for the natural environment in England, said: "Our
bird populations are a good indicator of the wider health of our environment
and it is clear that more needs to be done to support the recovery of farmland
and woodland birds. Many people will have a part to play and we look forward to
working with charities and landowners to reverse this trend."
Benyon said the government was doing "more than ever" to protect our wildlife.
"The area of land protected or managed under woodland and agri-environment
schemes is increasing. The condition of our protected sites is improving and it
is great to see members of the public giving more of their time to conservation
volunteering."
A white paper on the natural environment will be published this spring.
• this article was amended on 20 January 2011. The original referred to a
bunnock. This has been corrected.
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•
31 Oct 2008
Farmland bird numbers fall to lowest level on record
•
30 Jan 2008
Loss of set-aside farmland threatens birds, RSPB warns
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8 Nov 2004
Almost half of all Europe's bird species at risk
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28 Oct 2009
UK's once-threatened bird species back from the brink, conservationists say
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pigeonpolish
20 January 2011 2:27PM
Sad news, maybe are winters are becomming to harsh?
Certainly plenty of pigeons about
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NoneTooClever
20 January 2011 2:29PM
Do you get the feeling Gaia is trying to tell us something?
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whybothervoting
20 January 2011 2:41PM
Birds and Bee numbers are falling.........no wonder with the UK littered with
useless wind farms, and German pesticides killing off what does manage to
survive the noise of the wind turbines, fish are dying by the boat load, looks
like 22.12.2012 might not be a vision.
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Torgwen
20 January 2011 2:48PM
Ones said to be doing well regularly visit my feeders - Great Spotted
Woodpecker, Nuthatch and Long tailed tits. When it's snowed and icy I've had a
Song Thrush or two but "my" thriving blackbirds see them off, in fact one
female Blackbird was seeing off the thrushes and all other blackbirds.
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Lalongcarabine
20 January 2011 2:54PM
The less livable habitats become for any species, the less livable, colourful
and interesting it becomes for all forms of life, especially for mankind. The
problem today is that most people are too wrapped up in their own little world
to notice the devastation going on all around them.
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TerribleLyricist
20 January 2011 2:58PM
Ever seen a man blowing on a thermometer on a freezing day, in order to
convince himself that it isn't really so cold?
The government recognize that the environment is under stress, and that bird
populations are, almost literally, the canary in the coal mine. But instead of
really addressing environmental concerns, ministers are blowing like mad on the
thermometer, hoping that by making the bellwether less obvious the problem will
go away.
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shundarnagin
20 January 2011 3:00PM
The graph for the specialist and generalist farmland and woodland shows a very
revealing picture in the defra document with the generalists improving and the
specialists decreasing with a very dramatic difference. I am sure this is true
for insects as well, maybe some one can back that up. I cannot think of clearer
graph showing how the specialists have declined. I do not know how people can
claim biodiversity is not declining.
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candy88
20 January 2011 3:05PM
As we continue to have ever more cars on the UK's ever more roads, this
downward trend in bird numbers (and other wildlife) is hardly going to stop any
time soon.
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LouisLou
20 January 2011 3:06PM
and so selling off the national forests seems (as if I didn't already think so)
a completely wreckless idea...
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LouisLou
20 January 2011 3:10PM
Miners used to take notice and act (fast) if anything happened to their
canaries. Most of these bird species have lived through harsher winters than
this. It's the polution that's killing them not the snow. When are we going to
take notice?
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ipsh11
20 January 2011 3:10PM
Hey
We can send over a few millions from Norwegian woods!
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PizzaRe
20 January 2011 3:23PM
Key passage from the document
Most of the decline for the farmland birds index occurred between the late
seventies and the early nineties. Between 2003 and 2008 there was a seven per
cent decrease (smoothed index).
That makes sense.
Still not great, a 7% loss, but you'd expect an ongoing readjustment to
population numbers taking into account the intensification in agriculture from
1950-1990.
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inglisa
20 January 2011 3:31PM
I see blackbirds , sparrows , hedge-sparrows , wrens , gold crests , wagtails
of several kinds , crows , ravens , starlings , robins , buzzards ,kites ,
kestrels , pheasants , finches of several kinds , swans , geese of several
kinds , coots , moorhens , ducks of several kinds ,grebes , parakeets ,
thrushes , fieldfares , lapwings , pigeons and ring neck doves in my town . I
think pollution in larger towns may drive some species away , except perhaps in
large parks .Colder winters may be killing off more birds . Get the fat-balls
out !
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SteB1
20 January 2011 3:34PM
To anyone that has been a keen observer of the natural world throughout their
life, and who has a good, and accurate memory of how things were, and the
shocking changes, the problem referred to in the article are rather plain and
obvious.
In my teens when I walked our Irish Red Setter along the local public footpath
(in the 1970s), I have a good memory of what things were like. It was
unremarkable farmland. A bit of moderate pasture with a mixture of cows, a few
horses, bordered by an expanse of ploughed field where crops were planted.
Sadly a dirty big road has been built through it know. Our Setter was the
cleverest and most intelligent dog I have ever seen, even well over 30 years
later. She naturally pointed. As we walked across the field she would regularly
point at Common Partridge. She could sniff out a Common Partridge hiding in the
tough bits of vegetation the livestock left from a long way off. It was not
unusual to flush out up to 6-8 Common Partridge in this unremarkable field.
Huge flocks of Lapwing, several hundred strong would regularly be seen in the
ploughed field over winter. During the summer Skylarks sung their distinct
songs as they ascended, the real sound of summer to me. Yellow Hammers made
their little wheezing sound in all the Gorse surrounding the path over the
cattle bridge, which crossed the railway line. Wall Brown butterflies abounded.
All that has gone and it has drastically changed. Common Partridge are quite
uncommon now. People get excited by a few Lapwings, and not the flocks of
hundreds, which were so common in surrounding fields. The Skylarks are no more
in this area of countryside. Yellow Hammers are quite scarce, as are Wall Brown
butterflies in this part of the world. Even those annoying little House
Sparrows that used to wake me up with their early morning squabbling are
nowhere near as common.
The cause of all this is quite simple, the change in farming practice, Our
farmland was, and still is a huge reservoir for our wildlife. But much of this
farmland is now quite sterile because of modern farming practice, and it is not
a very good habitat for our wildlife.
It is going to take something big to reverse this change. Farmland was a much
better reservoir for wildlife, not because of HLS payments, but because there
was much less money in farming. The wildlife thrived on a bit of neglect.
Farmers wouldn't over intensely use their land, because there was no financial
motivation for them to do this. It is the efficient way they exploit every bit
of land that is the problem. This is not blame, and simply an observation.
Sadly very few noticed these changes, because they never saw what was there,
and they still don't. So this decline is only an abstract notion to most, and
not a real experience. It is easy to dismiss abstract notions with flippant and
erroneous claims about cold winters, when this decline started a long time ago.
It was clear to all those who walk through our countryside with their eyes
open, and rember how things were. Not nostalgic sentimentalism, but reality
supported by the surveys.
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FatKraken
20 January 2011 3:36PM
Birds and Bee numbers are falling.........no wonder with the UK littered with
useless wind farms, and German pesticides killing off what does manage to
survive the noise of the wind turbines, fish are dying by the boat load, looks
like 22.12.2012 might not be a vision.
Even the RSPB is happy with the vast majority of wind farms, objecting to just
7% of proposals. There are only 283 wind projects in the UK and noise falls off
cubically with distance, in terms of noise motorways are far more of an issue.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/index.aspx Wind farms are
simply not the problem.
The article is clear that the immediate solutions are simple, even minor
changes to the agricultural subsidy scheme can allow many species to recover. I
agree with TerribleLyricist though, in the longer term we need to completely
re-examine our relationship with the natural world and give nature a chance to
cover properly. Replanting and properly protecting native woodland, taking
marginal uplands out of sheep production/spruce plantations and allowing forest
regeneration (this will help with flood control too), proper protection and
recreation of wetlands, low runoff farming practices and so on would all go a
long way to helping ALL our wildlife and enhance our lives too.
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GilbertTheAlien
20 January 2011 3:55PM
I'm sorry, I just can't help it, but the cute little things are just so tasty.
Especially with electric eggs cooked in syrup.
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junebabe
20 January 2011 3:58PM
Two years ago I had 7, yes 7 squirrels in my small urban garden. I contacted
the RSPB about how to get rid of them, and they were not particularly
interested or helpful. I used to have gold crests, blue, and coal tits ,etc.
but the squirrel drey in my neighbours garden, is, I am sure one of the main
causes of the decline of the birds. I do feed the birds, but am continually
running out into the garden to chase the squirrels away. When will people stop
looking on grey squirrels as fluffy, jolly animals. Take away their furry tail,
and you see them for the tree rats, vermin that they are. They have almost
succeeded in killing off our pretty, native, red squirrel, and like the urban
fox, rummage and spread litter, and eat bird eggs, and upset the balance of
nature. I have bought various types of "squirrel proof" bird feeders, which the
squirrels have cheerfully wrecked or bitten through. Those of you who think
they are sweet, make sure you never let one get into your house. They can cause
thousands of pounds worth of damage in a few minutes.
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janeinalberta
20 January 2011 4:04PM
Among woodland birds, huge falls have been recorded for wood warbler, willow
tit, tree pipit, lesser spotted woodpecker, blackbird, bunnock, song thrush and
tawny owl, among others.
Bunnock? Good old Grauniad.
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PizzaRe
20 January 2011 4:10PM
@junebabe
Generally the decline is not in urban areas, it's in the countryside.
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Northernlite
20 January 2011 4:13PM
My Garden certainly gets more diverse in insect life every year. But the wooden
fences that divide our small gardens are patrolled by cats. Ive not seen a
nesting bird in my garden in the 5 years I have been there, just early morning
visitors.
Surely It is time for planners to look at intergrating wildlife habitat into
the ubiqutous developments of modest semi with high-fenced patch of lawn at the
back and driveway at the front? I would gladly replace fence with native hedge
if my neighbours would concur.
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wjk7
20 January 2011 4:14PM
The basic cause is human expansion : our numbers are soaring; we take more and
more land -to build more houses, supermarkets, more roadsand grow the food to
feed our ever growing population.
We need a population policy, to match the laudable conservation efforts of the
RSPB and BTO.
I have watched, and surveyed birds, for some time now and the variety is
definitely declining : there are far too many wood pigeons and feral pigeons;
yellow hammers and lapwings have virtually disappeared,even here in rural
Cornwall, but the great spotted woodpecker and the green are doing quite
well,as are chaffinches, coal tits, blue tits and great tits. Buzzards and
ravens are frequently spottedand we even have a pair of sparrow hawks in the
nearby orchard.
Recently I have also been fortunate enough to see a lone woodcock, a goldcrest
and a pair of bullfinches. My main effort in this cold winter, however, has
been to watch over the beautiful song thrush which visits my window sill for
grated cheese and suet scraps. I guard the food where possible,driving off the
greedy and aggressive mobs of starlings and male blackbirds. Fortunately, the
thrush has learned to trust me and has survived, hopefully now, to find a mate
and produce a family. It is a shy,delightful, dainty bird, and its song is
wonderful. Its decline is a sad marker of the pace of change which human
activity is imposing on the natural world.
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Sinnical
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