As the dust settles from the eight-week long daily peregrine watch at the Tate Modern, we've started to analyse the event.
Among the highlights, one incident stands out, when the peregrines chased off a buzzard that had found its way into central London. It came gliding in from the north but before it could even cross the Thames, Misty and Bert had leapt from the Tate chimney to chase it off. The nimbler peregrines dived on it from above, screeched at it and then followed it off towards Regent's Park. Bullies. Buzzards are the UK's most common bird of prey but we don't have any living in London. Like red kites, buzzards have been increasingly visiting the big smoke on daytrips.
Buzzards and red kites were once common London birds, so it would be great to see them return. There are big questions to be answered here. Should we do more to get these big birds to return to our streets? Why would we want them to return? What would the impact of their return be? I pray they will return.
Old London had more wildlife than it supports now. I'd personally like to see them return because it would show that we're learning to live within our natural surroundings rather than trying to impose a sanitized simulcrum of nature via manicured parks and gardens. Their return would signal the conditions are right and that there is food for them here. I believe we're heading slowly in that direction. As for their impact. Garden birds and songbirds weren't driven to extinction by predators, but their numbers have started to decline since human actions started to impact on the environment.
This is not a job for conservationists alone. Local authorities and land owners such as Thames Water, Transport for London and The Royal Parks are doing great work. Every Londoner has a role to play by managing their gardens and outdoor spaces for wildlife too. New legislation's now looming that will make it illegal to concrete over private gardens. Laying concrete for patios and car parking has removed a lot of London's grass, soil, plants, trees and shrubs. An area 22 times the size of Hyde Park has vanished from Greater London, along with the wildlife it once supported. All this concrete adds to the likelihood of flooding in heavy downpours and increases air temperatures. Two outcomes that will be made worse as climate change continues.
I'm not alone in espousing this belief. A new publication from Birdlife International published in Buenos Aries last week warned that global populations of birds are in decline, providing evidence of a deterioration in the world's environment that's a threat to all life on Earth.
Conservation is a complex science and tinkering with one strand in its web, sends reverberations along many other strings. Striving to get the balance of our environment right should be everyone's priority. It's a costly business, but doing nothing will cost the earth.