Last year, partly because of the excellent conditions for their growth, gardeners had to put up with a major infestation of slugs & snails.The absence of thrushes made this considerably worse as thrushes feed heavily on these pests.
It is now exactly two years since I last saw a songthrush in this postcode.
Most tits and finches have gone, wrens are around in small numbers and robins are rare.
[For reasons I cannot work out, pied wagtails have done rather well.]
The single largest factor for the decline in songbirds here is the proliferation of magpies. There were virtually none in 1975 when we arrived in Sheffield Handsworth, and now there are many hundreds - possibly more. One day I saw NINETEEN in a coven on the roof opposite!
As these vicious predators can take a hundred nestlings/ eggs each per season - it is not too difficult to work out what has happened in an urban area where cat numbers have fallen and crop spraying is irrelevant. If anything the environment has actually improved.
I resigned from the RSPB over this issue many years ago.
Birdlovers! May I encourage you to support the Songbird Survival Trust - they are realistic and support the much needed cull of magpies.
There is no room for silly sentiment when dealing with nature.
