I'm in danger of sounding like a doom-monger, but the fact is, London's blackbirds are vanishing.

Yet another common garden bird to add to the list of species no longer thriving in the Capital. The difference with blackbirds is that your sightings (reported via our Make Your Nature Count survey) run contrary to the rest of the UK, where the species appears to be OK. When it comes to other birds on a downward…

The tumblers and divers have finished their show and after a feast, to celebrate their time here with us in London, they''re preparing to set off on the long journey back to where they came from. Swifts are migrating back to their wintering grounds.

I'll miss them. But I know they'll be back. Hopefully all of those fantastic athletes and sporty folk who've been hanging around will return too. The Olympic Park…

Old father Thames has been a bit neglected of late. His beard’s full of crumbs and dust, and his regal clothes are a bit tatty and torn. Remember poor old David Walliam’s stomach churning swim from its source?

The river was spruced up a bit for the Jubilee celebrations, and didn’t Beckham look like a kid surrounded by presents on Christmas Day as he steered that speedboat under Tower Bridge?

Slip past…

The American sit-com Friends had 236 episodes and each, bar the first and last, had a title which started with the words "The One...”

True friends are hugely important to the RSPB. We can achieve far more for London’s wildlife with the support of our friends than we would working alone.

The Tate Modern help us by allowing us to set-up telescopes on their Southbank forecourt so we can point out the wild…

Common Agricultural Policyzzzzzzzzzz. No. Don’t fall asleep. This is really important.

The UK has no wilderness. Almost every inch of the UK is managed in one way or another. We live on a relatively small island that packs tons into its 94,500 square miles. Compare us with France’s 260,558 square miles or North America’s 9,540,198 square miles and you can understand how space is tight here. Without …

8.2 million People can’t be wrong. London is a great place to live. Metre for metre it has more green space than most other Capital cities. In its open spaces and rivers, you’ll find porpoises, red deer, kingfishers, eels, peregrine falcons, scary-looking stag beetles and bats.

London’s wildlife dwarfs its human population, yet few tourists come to see the wildlife. Indeed, few Londoners would add ‘nature…

There's something odd about London.

It's not the sudden outbreak of happiness and politeness that's spread like a virus from the Olympic Park, nor the emptier roads, it's the quiet decline of thrushes, especially blackbirds.

Seriously, London is the only place in the UK where the number of blackbirds have dropped, and they've fallen by almost a quarter (22% according to the latest Breeding Bird Su…

Thousands. No millions. Sorry, forget that, it's probably billions. Yes, billions of ants have taken to the skies of London in their annual mating flight, and those that survive hungry birds and spiders' webs will soon shed their wings and die.

The point to this apparently futile existence is procreation. Winged males and females  synchronise their flight with other colonies, so it seems the UK's entire flying…

It was a beautiful morning in the city of Sondon but the Fat Controller was not happy. "My really useful engine is in the wrong place and its all the fault of those nasty conservationists." He harumphed, stamped his foot and clenched his fists.

The previous day, Thomas, a cheeky, fussy little engine, had delivered letters to local residents saying the Fat Controllers' contractors were coming to clear the banks…

Interest's high and the question on everyone's lips is: "will the final statement be in the red, or the black?"

I refer not to the banking crisis, not to the world economy, but to our Cockney Sparrow Count. It closes on Thursday 12 July, with a few days grace to submit results. Ten years ago the first London sparrow census revealed a black hole of sparrows in central London. Alarmingly this once common…

Look out the window right now. Do see any house sparrows? I don't.

In the nineties, London lost seven out of every ten sparrows and there were fears the cockney sparra could soon be extinct in the Capital. Bear in mind that this little grey and brown bird has more or less colonised the world, and you can understand why this huge drop in numbers caused alarm.

In 2002, the RSPB, London Wildlife Trust, Greenspace information…

There's a rail-line at the bottom of my garden. I welcome the comforting rumble of trains carrying people to and from Liverpool Street. I also welcome the wildlife roaming the embankment; and the blankets of spring bluebells; the birds turning their heads as trains approach; and the cloaking canopies of the oaks and the glorious London plane tree. They support crows, jays, squirrels and so much more wildlife that losing…

RSPB Vice President Chris Packham has been exciting newspaper columnists and the twittersphere by suggesting we need to do something about cats. It's one of those topics like pensions, free access to museums or marmite that sharply divide people.

Chris is 100% correct in saying domestic cats (an estimated 7 to 9 million of them in the UK) are responsible for killing some 100 million critters a year or a half-year…

Dateline: 8 am, Monday 18 June 2012.

A cold, grey morning with a feeling of drizzle in the air, the sort that seeps under your collar and would make even the undead shiver.. It's just another London day.

Oh no it's not. It's the day the Cockney Sparrow Count gets underway. A day that's been ten years in the making and here it is at last! Light the fireworks, break out the bunting. Or did we do that already?…

Lobbyists have been working hard cajoling reporters and editors this past week or two. What they must have spent pushing their pimped plans for a glossy airport they claim will solve all our ills could probably write off the national debt.

Yes, I agree they could reclaim land from the Thames Estuary to build a mega airport. Just as they could build a replica of Nelson's Column in every UK town preparing to celebrate the…

Frazzled.

Everyone's frazzled and it's not just the air temperature.

Defra's been frazzled by proposals to control buzzards around country estates where people pay to shoot pheasants. Suggestions included capturing buzzards and destroying nests around the estates. Eviction and imprisonment - for that's what they're suggesting - is a ridiculous way to spend tax money, given that buzzards may, at most, kill…

Role reversal is something we should play with.

This week, in my family's eyes, I have been the evil developer laying waste to nature, spluttering a defence of: "Honest, it's for the best, you'll understand once I've finished this development..." The words sounded hollow even to my ears.

I condemned that invasive buddleja bush when we moved into our house some five years ago, and have been scheming…

The weird weather's still around but nature's soldiering on and is alight with action.

The lawn I laid earlier this year is now thriving and has brought in a much wider range of birds to my garden. I've more thrushes, a wren, more finches and even a new blackbird challenging the resident pair. But I've still got no house sparrows or starlings. One day soon, they'll appear. I have faith.

Ten years…

What started as a failed £100 bet with my good friend last year,  turned into a bird challenge that I will never forget. Last May my cousin, my friend Joe and I attempted to prove that we could see 100 birds within the M25 in just 48 hours. Despite our best efforts, and because of events out of our control, we had to pick a weekend which was just 'after' the key migration period, I unfortunately lost the…

Cold, hard rain hit my face on the cycle ride in to work this morning, but the clear and loud song of a blackbird from a garden square in Bloomsbury is my over-riding memory of the commute.

It's clarity and volume stood out from the rumble of London, adding a touch of magic to the usual soundtrack.  It's these unexpected exposures to nature that make urban living so great. We must all have memories of lazy Sunday…

I apologise. I give in. I didn't mean it. SORRY!

When I said there are no starling murmurations in London anymore in an interview about the Big Garden Birdwatch on BBC London, what I meant was that you don't see those huge, dense clouds of starlings that London once enjoyed. Yes. I know there are still starlings and some of them do swirl about like a dervish at a drum and bass party, but not in the same numbers…

Last year Chancellor George Osborne declared in the Commons that laws protecting our environment were "a ridiculous cost on British business” and he proposed ripping them up.

Sleep soundly in your beds tonight, calmed by the knowledge that your local park, river, woods and the whole country won't be covered in concrete; and that birds, animals, plants and marine life (actually, not our marine life) will…

How was it for you?

I gave up smoking years ago but even I wince at the notion of £7.50 for a pack of twenty. £5 for your average bottle of wine may help me drink less and I rarely buy beer in London pubs 'cause I can't then afford the bus fare home.

On the plus side for London. We'll have superfast broadband connections and improved cycling lanes. The Chancellor fiddled and played a merry tune with…

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman's reassuring the RSPB, and the thousands who voiced concerns, that legal protection for the environment will remain as "strong as ever".

Phew. Job done? Not yet!

While her announcement is welcome, the details of the full "Red Tape Challenge" have yet to be revealed. Martin Harper, RSPB Conservation Director says:

 “I am extremely glad to see that the Government…

This week we've had amazing footage of a sparrowhawk lunching on someone's lawn in west London, recordings of muntjac deer barking in the night in Hackney and great views of tawny owls and herons in central London parks. Our house sparrow project has completed its insect counts, recording more than 139,000 specimens in our trial seed plots.. and that's just the bugs over 2 mm in length.

This explosion of…