In article ,
"Alan Holmes" writes:
| "Larry Stoter" wrote in message
| ...
|
| 'Songbirds' and the 'usual suspects' - Magpies, Sparrowhawks, Peregrines
| have actually co-existed quite happily in Britain and elsewhere for
| thousands of years. If there is now a problem, it makes absolutely no
| sense to blame Magpies, Sparrowhawks or Peregrines. If there is a
| problem, logically it must arise from something which is different now
| from the last 10,000 years. And even a Sun reader should be able to work
| that out, possibly with the help of a few diagrams .... :-)
|
| Well I'm not very bright, so please enlighthen me?

Well, I arrogantly claim that I am, and Larry Stoter is wrong, though
he is also right.

There are only a few multicellular plants or animals that were here
11,000 years ago that are still here today. Since that time, the
ecologies of the British Isles have never been stable for more than
a very short period, and has been largely created by man. The
British Isles' terrestrial ecologies are all at least partially
artificial.

'Songbirds' are one of the benefactors of this, and were VASTLY more
common in the UK than in any natural ecology - at least in the past
century. This has changed, and the reason is very probably cats, but
there is no point in looking for things that are different from the
past 10,000 years, as there has been continual change.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.