The dawn chorus in Britain has now been succeeded by the dawn silence. So says the WWF, the World Wildlife Federation. The situation is so serious that, five years ago, the British government commissioned a report to look into the matter. They found that, over 25 years, bird populations had gone down crashed is the word used as follows: tree sparrows by 89 per cent; grey partridges by 82 per cent; turtle doves by 77 per cent; bullfinches by 70 per cent; song thrushes by 73 per cent; lapwings by 62 per cent; skylarks by 58 per cent; blackbirds by 42 per cent.
The cause of the decline is laid on a combination of pesticides and modern farming practices, which together destroy the birds' food and breeding sites. For pesticides kill the grubs and insects on which the young birds depend, and the taking out of hedges and bushes deprives them of nesting sites. The report makes the obvious point that farming and wildlife must co-exist, so, first, there must be some amendment of farming policy. There must be increases in the payments made to farmers who manage their land environmentally. Leaving fallow the edges of fields up to a couple of metres all round, comes to most people's minds. but in the long term, says the WWF, the EU Common Agricultural Policy must be overhauled "so as to shift the pattern of subsidies away from product ion quotas and price intervention towards a more socially and environmentally responsible approach."
The day when no birds sing is the day when humanity begins to reap an awful revenge - nature's revenge.
But set-aside and other methods show that part of the lesson is being learned.
And, in some cases, industrialists are producing pesticides that do not result in over-kill. As was quoted here recently: "The truth is, that we need invertebrates but they don't need us."
And birds need them, and we need birds, for the most basic of reasons as well as for the aesthetic pleasure of tlie dawn chorus.