My garden has fields to front and rear, in the Chiltern AONB (something of an exaggeration). I had many more birds when I first arrived in 2000, they have been going down since. They used to empty a seed tube in a day, now I can end up throwing the seeds away after they have gone rotten after a month. Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Sparrow, coal tits used to be the hungriest, lots of blue and great tits, and dunnocks and robins (and bank voles) would pick up the seeds the fussy birds threw on the ground. Starlings and blue tits would empty the peanut feeder. Greenfinch, sparrow and great tit have become infrequent sights, hardly see them now, though just in the last week some greenfinches have turned up and emptied the feeder over the course of a week. Goldfinches are a relatively new arrival, but only spotted occasionally. Peanuts always go rotten now. A few years ago I had a linnet nest in the garden, but not been repeated.

One thing that has happened around us in that time is that the field use is changing. The field behind the house used to be left to do its thing, but is now mowed for hay to feed horses. Other local fields used to have grain growing on them, but increasingly are just mowed for hay. I am wondering if these mowed hayfields have less value to these small passerines than the previous fallow and grain fields, and therefore there is a smaller reservoir of birds to visit our gardens. In the fields, but not the gardens, are skylarks and occasionally yellowhammer. I've seen a barn owl a few times, and I had to brake my bicycle sharply to avoid a badger the other day. All 5 common corvids are commonly seen in both in the fields and in the garden, and seem to be increasing.

Gardens deeper into suburbia seem to have a lot more birds than ours.