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.
Essex peasant doesn't seem to me to have answered mirlo's question about whether he agrees that wildlife on farmed land is in a better or worse state than 25 years ago. It's quite a simple question. I'm sure the wildlife around me is worse - and I've lived in this bit of countryside all my life (although I'm not a farmer). There are fewer of many of the characteristic birds of my youth. Fewer skylarks and fewer English partridges. I'm not a bird expert but it's pretty clear to me that farming has driven wildlife to the edges of the fields and sometimes driven it away completely.