If S13 Is Typical – Sheffield Faces A Wildlife Crisis.
From a rural background, I adore songbirds and understand managing nature. Ironically my late father, who despised game shooting, was best friends with the village gamekeeper!
I learned valuable lessons from both concerning the delicate balance of nature; including beautiful and delicate songbirds in nature’s huge but bloody predator-prey competition. The scales must never lose their balance.
Great tits, coal tits, goldfinches and long-tailed tits have all enjoyed a minor resurgence in S13. Robins, wrens, blackbirds, goldcrests and the few remaining song thrushes are struggling, however. Many smaller birds will soon be no more.
As daily walkers around Handsworth, Richmond and Woodhouse, totalling 2,000+ miles annually, my wife and I have noted a devastating reduction in birdsong. The decline during this last year? - We'd estimate 50% in just 12 months.
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Trees formerly teeming with birdlife stand empty. One can now walk past dozens of bushes or trees without a single local songster heralding Spring. Who or what is the culprit?
Domestic cats? - There's little evidence of domestic cat numbers having increased. Cat owners can still play their part by following Songbird Survival's advice:
Pesticides? - Happily, they're less of an issue than previously.
Winter? - Unlikely. 2020/2021 was not a drastically bad winter.
Birds of prey? - True, more kestrels, buzzards and sparrowhawks have circled the skies above Handsworth than ever before, even landing in our small garden, but as natural predators in relatively tiny numbers, in the larger picture their damage is negligible.
J'accuse the lack of ecological balance: a consequence of humans weak in their responsibility for managing nature. This eco-tragedy coincides with spiralling numbers of magpies, crows, rats and grey squirrels. The toll taken by these rapacious characters is huge: magpies devour an estimated 150 nestlings plus eggs in a single season. This is catastrophic.
Recently, 19 magpies lurked on a neighbour's house!
This morning, I counted four dozen crows in a single field. Magpies can run at double those numbers. Rats, once a rarity in daylight hours, are now seen on a daily basis. Grey squirrels, an alien species to the UK, which have caused devastation across the UK, run amok, out-eating even magpies where nestlings are concerned.
Only this week, magpies - witnessed tracking our local blackbirds – plundered their nest!
Songbirds are facing local extinction; eco-genocide which we have the power to prevent by undertaking a major humane cull. Painful? Yes. Heart-breaking? Yes. But those are the wrong questions. A better question is this: what happens if we do not take the hard decisions? Such damage would be permanent and possibly irreversible.
There is still time to save our songbirds but the Council must take action - and quickly. Sheffield's sonorous skies must sound shrill songbird symphonies.
