KenM
Well-known member
At the back of my abode c300m away there stood an area c80m radius of rank 12' high..Gorse/Birch/Oak and Hawthorn, that bordered a golf course and adjacent Birch/mixed deciduous woodland..The Corporation of London thinned it out last year, and in passing I remembered the breeding Linnet/Turtle Dove/Red-backed Shrike/Common Redstart/Tree Pipit/Cuckoo/Skylark/Reed Bunting/Yellow Bunting/Lesser Spotted Woodpecker/Spotted Flycatcher/Marsh Tit/Willow Tit/Willow Warbler/Common Whitethroat/Lesser Whitethroat/and Garden Warbler. For me..I can remember them all like yesterday!..and to think that..when the single proverbial Canary stopped singing..there was a scramble for the lift shaft!..On the plus side we have Legret most of the year, Collared Doves have replaced Turtle..Blackcaps are everywhere..as are the Corvids, Grey Squirrels, Sprawks..with Buzzards and Hobbies (In season) probably daily if you looked long and hard. That's one ''hell-uva'' change in the avian landscape over a 50 year blink!..Question what will the next 50 years bring? as apart from the appaling loss of ''avian fabric'' to date, the concept of Legret and Hobby on the doorstep..almost on demand..35 years ago one would have necessitated a trip to Southern France for the former, and the New Forest for the latter! The mind boggles..Anyone for regular breeding Subalpine and Serin over the next 50..or are they just a racing certainty?
