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 trend, such as starlings and swifts, the decline is national.
I bang on about the declines because birds are a great indicator of other less obvious things going wrong. Would you notice if London's earthworm population shrank, or if numbers of earwigs dropped off the white cliffs of Dover? But if your garden were bereft of birds, I'd hope you'd start to wonder why. Wouldn't you? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong telegraph pole? Do feel free to let me know.
There are good things in the survey to celebrate too. You told us that goldfinches are doing well, adding credence to suggestions from other recent surveys and anecdotal feedback. London's awash with goldfinches and if you haven't sen any around your home, you're either not looking hard enough or you live in a very built-up area with no green space to enjoy; in which case, you don't know what you're missing.
My cycle ride in to work takes me through residential streets in Hackney and Islington where people's imaginations and personalities have created amazing front gardens. Public spaces adopted by communities make me smile. Like the usually-compacted-soil-squares around street trees that are transformed into mini-flower beds, or informal troughs of plants and nestboxes tacked up along iron railings, probably tolerated but not authorised by borough councils. These mini-habitats help support bugs, bats, birds and more and offer stopping-off points for wildlife as it moves around the Capital.
My pedalling progresses through the heart of London, down to the Thames and the majesty of the old riverside buildings. The north bank's linear parks are much under-rated and forgotten, separated from the river walk by the busy A3211 Victoria Embankment road. Even here theree's wildlife to be seen. I've not yet spotted any foxes, but I have seen cormorants, gulls, swifts and great tits. I haven't paused long enough to see goldfinches, and I bet there are bats every evening.
We are losing some species. We're gaining others. Nature changes and will continue to change as time passes and as our climate alters. That doesn't mean we stand by and do nothing. What's important from a conservation point of view, is making sure there's supportive space in which all that moving wildlife can rest, feed and reproduce. That will ensure that future generations, while probably also failing to have time to see it, at least have the opportunity to discover living examples of our natural heritage.