Working and living in London, it's a joy to visit our reserves or the countryside. Yet I'm all too conscious of the number of fellow Londoners who feel no connection with rural Britain and don't care where the food in our shops comes from.
It's a sad state of affairs and maybe I and other conservationists are partly to blame. Why are farmland birds important to you if you're struggling to keep a roof over your head and your bank balance in the black? Well, time is running out to make corn buntings relevant, in fact we've less than a week to go.
On 29 June, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, is due to unveil the EU's budget and one of the big savings planned is the slashing of some funding that is vital for wildlife. Here's the technical bit. Pillar 2 of the Common Agricultural Policy pays farmers to manage their land for wildlife. If it is scrapped, the emphasis will move away from custodianship of nature, towards exploitation of nature. It's a short term financial saving but a longterm disaster. Our countryside and wildlife will suffer and while food production will no doubt go up, it can't be sustained.
Right now I need you to email José Manuel Barroso and let him know Londoners DO give a damn about our green and pleasant land. I want you to trample on his grapes until there's a flood of complaining emails so big, his virtual inbox-cup runs over. More than 4,500 objections have already been sent. The other thing you can do is hug a farmer, but give them plenty of warning, cause they're not used to us townies being supportive.
After expressing this new found love for farmers and our countryside, please take a moment to enjoy it yourself. Find a green space, sit down and see how many different living things share that space with you. I'm particularly interested if you see a swift or a tree sparrow. We've got surveys underway on both species right now and to help tell the difference between tree sparrows and the more common house "cockney" sparrow, we've put red plastic rings on the legs of every tree sparrow chick hatched this year at their south London colony.