"Sacha Hubbard" wrote in message
al.net...
On Mon, 29 May 2006 14:21:23 +0100, Derek Turner wrote
(in article ):

Klara wrote:

Since we started summer feeding two years ago, there has been a huge
decline in the numbers of birds and numbers of species coming for the
food: a tenth the number of various kinds of tits and of blackbirds,
etc., and, most worryingly, no parents of any kind feeding young except
crows, magpies, and jackdaws.

We have two active farms, one at either end of our village. At my end
the farmer is very proactive in destroying corvids to protect his lambs.
At the other the farmer does nothing to control these pests. Surprise,
surprise, we have dozens of species of song-bird feeding in our garden.
Villagers at the other end are wondering why they have none. Forget the
cats - get a Larsen trap.

We have a very active rookery at the end of our garden and the garden and
nursery are alive with songbirds. Customers comment frequently on how
tame
they are and how unafraid of the many dozens of people milling around here
at
times. We feed them all year round, we encourage them in by giving them
plenty of areas in which to nest and by using biological controls in the
greenhouses and wherever possible, in the garden, too. Our rooks (and
jackdaws) are most certainly not reducing our songbird population.


--
Sacha

We have lots of songbirds, including corn bunting and yellowhammer, reed
bunting and whitethroat, sedge warbler and all the regular garden birds,
plus sparrowhawk everyday, buzzards, kestrels, and lots and lots of crows,
rooks, magpies, and a cat next door. Blaming predators for the decline of
songbirds is barking up the wrong tree- improve the habitat, make sure the
food sources are there (insects! yes, even for seed-eating birds in summer)
and populations will do well, including birds of prey. It is not the
predators which control the prey numbers, it is the prey that controls the
predator numbers. Good numbers of sparrowhawks and buzzards indicates
healthy populations of prey species.
Paul D.