Waxwings - I actually went out looking for them in east Northants yesterday and failed completely despite many recent local records. Did see lots of rowan berries, industrial estates and redwings though! Will I ever see a waxwing this winter?
Farmland birds - a short blog of a week ago has attracted a large number of comments - mostly from a so-called 'Essex peasant' otherwise known as Essex farmer and NFU mouthpiece Guy Smith. The comments are mostly longer than the original blog! Guy has problems with Hope Farm, the Farmland Bird Index, and most things that the RSPB does. Makes for an interesting read if you are interested in that type of thing.
Dancing - now is the time to download Bird is the word to try to get it to be the Christmas Number 1.
Last date to order from the RSPB before Christmas - 15 December.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Mirlo, Mark,
in answer to your question , with regards to birds, I can do no better than refer you to page 16 of the RSPBs state of British Birds www.rspb.org.uk/.../sukb2010_tcm9-262382.pdf , in amongst the RSPB comment you can see a table that looks at the overall situation and there it is writ large and clear, in the last 20 years most bird species have been stable, some have gone down in numbers but MORE have increased.
As for plants and invertebrates I think the situation is equally mixed. My only comment with invertebrates is that quite a lot of avian insectivores such as swallows and woodpeckers have increased ( see for instance
www.bto.org/.../wcrswall.shtml
www.bto.org/.../wcrgrewo.shtml
www.bto.org/.../wcrgrswo.shtml - and yet again none of these species are not on the FBI despite the fact that Green woodpeckers and swallows in particular are very common on farmland).
And I do encourage farmers to undertake conservation more seriously, if you are in the vicinity of Basingstoke tomorrow night you can come and listen to me talking to North Hants NFU where I will do exactly that.
sorry you find my comments 'puerile' ,
Essex peasant - 7-1 up, come on Mark lets have another couple of positives like your remark about Barn Owls.
Trim Bush - hail fellow essex person
Paysan savant