People have been listening to skylarks singing in Britain for 10,000 years. But now they, and many other much-loved species, are vanishing fast.
By David Adam, environment correspondent …the star attraction of the neighbouring fields has flown. Until a year ago, a clutch of woodlark nested there, one of Britain’s rarest birds with just 1,000 or so thought to remain. Then their home was ploughed up and replaced with a giant field of swaying hemp plants. The woodlark have not been seen since. It is not just the professional birdwatchers of the RSPB who have seen their local landscape transformed. Across Britain, and with little fanfare, the face of the countryside has subtly changed in recent years. Farm fields that stood idle for years under EU schemes to prevent overproduction, such as the one across the road from the RSPB, have been conscripted back into active service. The uncultivated land, previously a haven for wildlife, has been ploughed, and farmers have planted crops such as wheat and barley, with occasional hemp for use in paper and textiles. As a result, the amount of land available for birds such as the woodlark has halved in the last two years. Without efforts to stem this loss of habitat, conservation experts warn that the countryside of the future could look and sound very different. Starved of insects in the spring and seeds through the winter, the metallic-sounding corn bunting and plump grey partridge, formerly one of the most common birds on UK shores, are on the brink. And the skylark, whose twittering has provided the soundtrack to millions of countryside walks and inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Ode to a Skylark, to praise its “profuse strains of unpremeditated art”, is struggling and could soon vanish from many areas. Numbers fell 53% from 1970 to 2006. “This is not just about birdwatchers. These birds are part of our common heritage,” says Gareth Morgan, head of agriculture policy at the RSPB. Government figures show that populations of 19 bird species that rely on farmland have halved since serious counting started in the 1970s – a decline conservationists blame on intensive farming methods, with insecticide and herbicide sprayed on to monoculture fields shorn of vibrant hedges. …
Where have all our birds gone?
