When I die...

At our AGM last Saturday, I used the Venerable Bede's sparrow in the banqueting hall as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of one's own existence.  I said that every time I saw a graph showing wildlife declines (many of which start when I was born in 1970), it reminded me of how much we had lost while I had been a sparrow in Bede's banqueting hall ie in my lifetime.  I went on to say that this had led me to come up with my own personal mission.  I optimistically predicted that I might be half way through my life and so my ambition was that when I die in 43 years time (I can but hope), I want the wildlife graphs to be at the level there were when I was born.

Well, its autumn so that must mean the UK wild bird indicator graphs are published (see here).  I have to say that this year, most of the bird trends look a little worrying.  But once again, the one that gives most case for concern is the graph showing what is happening to farmland birds.  

Now it's fair to say that some people (farmers mostly) don't like the farmland bird indicator.  They say it gives a distoring impression about what is happening in the countryside and they would rather we did not speak about it.  I understand that those farmers that are doing fantastic things for wildlife might feel a bit demoralised when they see that their own efforts have not made a significant difference to the overall picture.  

But, I think that is just the point, we need to make.  Lots of farmers are doing great things, but the policy and incentive system through the Common Agriculture Policy is inadequate to reverse the fortunes of farmland birds.  And the latest graph comes at a time when Defra is considering how to implement the CAP deal in England and allocate more than £2m of taxpayers money each year.   It's a timely reminder to make the right decisions about transfers, agri-environment scheme design and greening.

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the CAP consultation in England has yet to emerge.  Given that the UK Government needs to confirm its decision on transfers by the end of the year, the chances are that any consultation period is now likely to be very short.  So, everyone will need to be quick off the mark to make  their voices heard.

For those of you who want to understand the wild bird index, here is a mini explanation from Mark Eaton (one of our scientists involved in compiling the index)...

The wild bird indicators are produced by collating population trends for all common breeding species 'belonging' to a given habitat – 19 in the case of farmland. This doesn't include those species that might occur in farmland, but also across a range of other habitats, such as robins, or swallows, for example. These individual species trends are set to the same value – 100 – in the starting year, and rises or falls in subsequent years reflect the relative change in their numbers. We then calculate the average value for all 19 species, for each year (if you want to know the details, we use a geometric mean – see here). If the indicator rises from 100 to 200 it means that, on average, the birds within it have doubled in numbers, and if it falls to 50 they have halved.

In addition to the main farmland bird indicator, we split the 19 farmland birds into two groups, based on the ornithological literature: 12 'specialists' considered highly dependant on farmland, and 7 'generalists' that can be found in a wider range of habitats. The two lines illustrate clearly how it is the farmland specialists that have suffered the most over the last four decades.

Of course, it's important to remember that indicators present the average and thus hide the variation between species. Within the falling farmland bird indicator there are species such as jackdaws and woodpigeons that have actually done very well in recent decades, but there are also those such as corn bunting and turtle dove that have plummeted at an even faster rate than the indicator suggests.

There are lots more stories about conservation successes and challenges hidden away in these graphs (to which I may return in future blogs) but the overall message is clear: for me to die happy in 43 years time, we need to reboot our conservation strategy.