No Birds

[Bald Bouncer]

Taking my daughter to school this morning I only saw one blackbird, to use the old cliché 'when I was a kid' you had birds everywhere and you hardly hear this mentioned now but something has seriously gone wrong, I can't remember the last time I saw a sparrow but when I was a kid you couldn't walk half a mile without seeing dozens of them.

[littlebilly1]

Taking my daughter to school this morning I only saw one blackbird, to use the old cliché 'when I was a kid' you had birds everywhere and you hardly hear this mentioned now but something has seriously gone wrong, I can't remember the last time I saw a sparrow but when I was a kid you couldn't walk half a mile without seeing dozens of them.

Our back Garden's full of birds, it's lovely listening to them in the summer while sitting on the patio with an ice cold lager!


Sent From TapaTalk

[blaggard]

Taking my daughter to school this morning I only saw one blackbird, to use the old cliché 'when I was a kid' you had birds everywhere and you hardly hear this mentioned now but something has seriously gone wrong, I can't remember the last time I saw a sparrow but when I was a kid you couldn't walk half a mile without seeing dozens of them.

Looks like littlebilly1 has stolen them all. . .

Actually I'm with you BB, serious decline in numbers...

[supraman54]

A very sad state too as there's now better than the sound of birds singing on a spring morning ..

[DJ OD]

Can guarantee there will be 100's of them singing like maniacs whenever I roll in past daybreak and am trying to sleep...


DJ OD

[Goldberg]

But do they not migrate? We are still technically in Winter, although I am yet to really feel it.. It is almost like watching Game of Thrones - "Winter is Coming". When though? BBQ season in the height of summer no doubt!

https://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/exper...s_migrate.aspx

[DejaVu]

Some birds migrate, Sparrows are not one of them.

You make a good point BB, hardly a year went past when House Martins would shove a shitty slimey mess to the side of our house and chirp all night/morning keeping me awake. Can't remember the last time I even saw one now.

--edit
According to 'Statistics' it's the Seagulls and Sea birds muscling in on them...
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...2_UK_FINAL.pdf

and I have just noticed, I see more Seagulls around my area than I used to - and I'm 20 miles from the Sea.

[{{909}}]

there was a huge tree behind my old house that would become a resting point for migrating birds, fuck me they would make an incredible noise in the late evening, drove me fucking crackers at the time.

I dare say its still pretty similar today as the area is pretty much unchanged, but I would imagine places with more people, cars, roads and therefor noise may mean the birds are just going to more rural locations

[Over Carl]

I still hear the fuckers most mornings when I'm trying to get to sleep.

[Geko]

My dad attracts the birds with all sorts of feeders and seeds. There are a ton of birds in his garden. Quite often they'll be 50 Finches on the big feeder all eating niger seed. Loads of blue tits and great tits and a few doves and pigeons. Might see a woodpecker and a jay or some rarer birds. Never see a sparrow or a starling. My dad reckons he sees a load of starlings and sparrows at my nan's. She lives on a council estate in Langley.

Otherwise I have noticed a serious decline in Sparrows over the last 10 years. It was even on springwatch or countryfile or something along those lines.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/bir...row/index.aspx

In my last house which backed onto the River Pinn and some nice greenery, in West London. (soon to be populated by the HS2 line) I used to hear a shit load of Rooks. Drove me nuts. And there was an Owl that I heard every night, but I found that soothing. I lost that house in the divorce. So I don't hear them any more.

[Mobileman]

dont get me wrong love birds and listening to them when its convenient but jesus the little shit machines never shut up by my house usually around 4am the gits start

[ilscuro]

Like BB i can remember when i was little there were loads of birds around the streets where we lived, i don't think i've seen a Starling for years and they were abundant in those days.

Pigeons seem to thrive though, my town centre is full of them.


I'm sure i read somewhere that the domestic cat is the main reason for the decline of birds.

[4me2]

I live in the country inbetween two villages so I can't say that I have noticed too much.

What I have seen though since I returned from Germany nearly 10 years ago is a noticable increase in birds of prey.
As I was growing up in the 70's and early 80's they were very rare.

I think a lot of this was probably down to the poisons being sprayed unregulated on the fields. That probably has caused
a lot of the cancer issues we are now seeing too.

This Winter has been extremely mild so I'm wondering if a lot of the birds that migrate know something we don't ?
I'd guess at shit load of snow yet to hit us before they return. That being said there have been a shit load of Canadian geese that didn't migrate
plundering the amongst the stubble of last years crop infront of my house. The farm lads must have shot at least 20 of them.

[SiE]

We have a lot of birds round here in fact at dawn there are huge numbers flying to the flashes to feed. We had a lot of geece last year as well.

[Goldberg]

Round here at Epping forest we have more magpies than anything else.
Last summer we saw a pair of parrots too which apparently is becoming more common.

Walking through the forest we are
Seeing plenty of robins at the moment also.

[Bald Bouncer]

UK breeding bird population shrinks by more than 44 million since 1966



The UK has lost more than 44 million breeding birds in less than half a century, including an average of 50 house sparrows every hour, according to a report.

Scientists estimate the number of nesting birds has plummeted from 210 million in 1966 to 166 million today. The shocking statistics are contained in the State of the UK's Birds 2012 report, published on Monday, and charting the ups and downs of the nation's bird populations.

One of the biggest losers is the house sparrow, with a population of around 10 million – 20 million fewer than in 1966, when the first reliable all-species bird monitoring scheme was conducted – despite numbers starting to increase in the last 10 years.

There has been a steep decline in willow tits, especially since the 1990s, with the species all but disappearing from most of the UK, and only the Midlands and Yorkshire boasting sizeable populations.

Lesser spotted woodpeckers are now too few to monitor properly, as are arctic skuas. The report estimates there could be as few as 1,500 pairs each of the three species left in the UK.

The populations of farmland bird species is now less than half what it was in 1970, according to the report, which draws on data from leading organisations including the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) and Birdlife International, as well as government agencies.

Experts say breeding birds have vanished from the British countryside at an average rate of one pair every minute.

Changes in land use and management of the coastal waters are believed to have contributed to the losses. In some cases, birds have found it difficult to locate suitable places to nest, or to forage for food in the summer or winter.

Cold weather has impacted, too, and is believed to have had a startling effect on the wren. Still the UK's most numerous bird, an average of 835 wrens have been lost each day since 2000. The reasons behind the house sparrow decline are still not fully understood.

Two of the UK's seaducks – the velvet scoter and the long-tailed duck – are now considered threatened with extinction globally.

However, bitterns, corncrakes and nightjars have shown steady recovery in numbers, thought to be due to conservation measures to protect them.

There have been winners as well as losers. The chaffinch has increased at a rate of 150 individuals a day over the period.

The collared dove, whose numbers were very low as the species only started nesting in the UK in 1955, has seen its numbers explode to around 1 million pairs.

The closely related turtle dove, which in 1966 was widespread with around 140,000 breeding pairs, however, has been decimated. Today there are thought to be just 14,000 nesting pairs.

The report, which also examined bird populations of the UK's overseas territories, highlighted concern over the northern rockhopper penguin, found on the remote south Atlantic volcanic islands of Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island. Once to be found in their millions, the numbers of the distinctive penguins have crashed, with food resources, disease and predation all being possible causes.

Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said of the report: "It is shocking to think we've lost one in five of the individual birds that we had in the 1960s, especially when you think that the 44 million birds we have lost since 1966 is equivalent to the current adult human population of England and Wales."

Richard Hearn, from the WWT, said: "Sea duck numbers in Europe have crashed and they urgently need conservation.

"Velvet scoter overwintering in the UK have gone from several thousand birds to less than 100 in just a few years, and the picture for the long-tailed duck is similar. Several other species have also shown large declines.

"By tying our findings with similar reports from the Baltic and elsewhere, we're getting a clearer understanding of the problem, but to be effective we need all countries to work more closely together."

Source: The Guardian

[blaggard]

UK breeding bird population shrinks by more than 44 million since 1966



The UK has lost more than 44 million breeding birds in less than half a century, including an average of 50 house sparrows every hour, according to a report.

Scientists estimate the number of nesting birds has plummeted from 210 million in 1966 to 166 million today. The shocking statistics are contained in the State of the UK's Birds 2012 report, published on Monday, and charting the ups and downs of the nation's bird populations.

One of the biggest losers is the house sparrow, with a population of around 10 million – 20 million fewer than in 1966, when the first reliable all-species bird monitoring scheme was conducted – despite numbers starting to increase in the last 10 years.

There has been a steep decline in willow tits, especially since the 1990s, with the species all but disappearing from most of the UK, and only the Midlands and Yorkshire boasting sizeable populations.

Lesser spotted woodpeckers are now too few to monitor properly, as are arctic skuas. The report estimates there could be as few as 1,500 pairs each of the three species left in the UK.

The populations of farmland bird species is now less than half what it was in 1970, according to the report, which draws on data from leading organisations including the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) and Birdlife International, as well as government agencies.

Experts say breeding birds have vanished from the British countryside at an average rate of one pair every minute.

Changes in land use and management of the coastal waters are believed to have contributed to the losses. In some cases, birds have found it difficult to locate suitable places to nest, or to forage for food in the summer or winter.

Cold weather has impacted, too, and is believed to have had a startling effect on the wren. Still the UK's most numerous bird, an average of 835 wrens have been lost each day since 2000. The reasons behind the house sparrow decline are still not fully understood.

Two of the UK's seaducks – the velvet scoter and the long-tailed duck – are now considered threatened with extinction globally.

However, bitterns, corncrakes and nightjars have shown steady recovery in numbers, thought to be due to conservation measures to protect them.

There have been winners as well as losers. The chaffinch has increased at a rate of 150 individuals a day over the period.

The collared dove, whose numbers were very low as the species only started nesting in the UK in 1955, has seen its numbers explode to around 1 million pairs.

The closely related turtle dove, which in 1966 was widespread with around 140,000 breeding pairs, however, has been decimated. Today there are thought to be just 14,000 nesting pairs.

The report, which also examined bird populations of the UK's overseas territories, highlighted concern over the northern rockhopper penguin, found on the remote south Atlantic volcanic islands of Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island. Once to be found in their millions, the numbers of the distinctive penguins have crashed, with food resources, disease and predation all being possible causes.

Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said of the report: "It is shocking to think we've lost one in five of the individual birds that we had in the 1960s, especially when you think that the 44 million birds we have lost since 1966 is equivalent to the current adult human population of England and Wales."

Richard Hearn, from the WWT, said: "Sea duck numbers in Europe have crashed and they urgently need conservation.

"Velvet scoter overwintering in the UK have gone from several thousand birds to less than 100 in just a few years, and the picture for the long-tailed duck is similar. Several other species have also shown large declines.

"By tying our findings with similar reports from the Baltic and elsewhere, we're getting a clearer understanding of the problem, but to be effective we need all countries to work more closely together."

Source: The Guardian

Being an old fart (60 now!!) my impression of the decline is based on that and more, we are steadily screwing ourselves over, this is just one more indicator.

[Geko]

I read that the sparrow decline is steadying and stabilising. I hope that's the case.

Like 4me2. I have noticed an increase in birds of prey. I see a lot of Red Kites around and I live in London.

[Lighty]

Ive noticed a massive increase in fat birds round our way, some of em have more than 2 very young kids too and a lot dont seem to be with the fathers. Its a crying shame really, when I was a lad you'd always see Full families walking about going to the park in spring/summer, going on family shopping trips etc.