Tim Lamb wrote in
:

I believe we are moving toward a revised population balance
in many species that formerly relied heavily on human
carelessness for their food and nest sites.

At my home in Glenlivet, below Ben Rinnes, back in the 70's I
used to see the stacks of oats covered with Black Game when
there was a good covering of snow. (One year we got 26 inches of
snow and it stayed for weeks). There were always coveys of hill
grey partridges pecking around where the cattle were fed on oats
on the sheaf (unthreshed) over winter.

Then my neighbours gradually put up buildings and kept their
cattle inside over winter and they hired a combine rather than
using a binder to harvest the oats. Result? The partridges
disappeared and the grouse declined. Most of these farms, and
the lower parts of the grouse moors, have now been planted up
for forestry to grow trees nobody wants.

I have too many sparrows here (40 miles north of Inverness), but
then my buildings are dilapidated and the free range hens are on
a self feeder.

Derry