View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - IT'S A NUMBERS GAME

IT'S A NUMBERS GAME

I've written several times in these blogs about the wonderful Kingfishers that can be seen here at RSPB Old Moor. One of my earliest pieces was about why it's called the Halcyon Bird, I've written about how their feathers aren't really blue (honestly) and I will maintain until my final breath that, whatever else may happen, it's always a good day when you see a Kingfisher.

But what kind of Kingfisher? There are officially 116 species around the world ranging in size from the diminutive African Dwarf Kingfisher to the portly Laughing Kookaburra in Australia. I've been fortunate enough to see several different ones and while their size and colour schemes are vastly different to our own British representation of the Genus (known as the Common, River or Eurasian Kingfisher), they have the same silhouette and general feel about them. Nature often gets a pattern that works and adapts it to local conditions.

And it's not only the Kingfishers that are seen in various forms around the world. Take for example the humble Sparrow. There are more individual Sparrows than people on the planet but there are many subtle variations depending upon where you spot one.

In Canada I've seen Clay-Coloured, Song and White-Crowned Sparrows but these are what's known as New World Sparrows, a slightly different genetic family from the Old World Sparrows that we see in Europe. At least over here they have the decency to take their names from the place they live, e.g. Spanish or Italian Sparrows. Unfortunately they, like us, have a tendency to travel so just because you see a Spanish Sparrow, don't take it for granted that it's a Spanish Sparrow. It could be an Italian Sparrow on holiday. And the odds are very slim that you'll see a Chipping Sparrow in Chipping Sodbury.

To make things even more interesting not all Sparrows are called Sparrows. And not all Sparrows that are called Sparrows are actually Sparrows! They might actually belong to the Tanager, Bunting, Brushfinch or other families. This lack of uniformity regarding naming conventions can be very confusing. That's why we have the scientific, Latin names to help clarify things. That helps a bit, but I can't even with any certainty say how many Sparrow species there are in the world. It's somewhere around 175 but it depends on your definition of Sparrow. Even that's a little debatable.

For example, when I was a lad I regularly saw three kinds of Sparrow without having to travel very far from my Sheffield home. Almost every house had a colony of House Sparrows in the eaves and guttering. A local farm or smallholding would be home to a flock of Tree Sparrows. And finally, in the darker undergrowth patches of every garden there would be the skulking Hedge Sparrows.

Now these birds are much rarer. House Sparrows are still found in most neighbourhoods but their numbers are declining dramatically worldwide. 85% of them have disappeared from North America since I was born. Closer to home, here in England there has been a 50% fall in rural House Sparrow population since the mid-seventies. Look at city-dwelling birds and those losses are even greater, more than 60% lost in around 50 years. And that's just the (once) common-or-garden House Sparrow. Tree Sparrows are much more of a rarity. Even Old Moor's Tree Sparrow Farm area is devoid of them. And the Hedge Sparrows? Well that particular species has deliberately been expunged by scientists. It turns out that the Hedge Sparrow wasn't actually a Sparrow at all. It was Britain's only bird in the Accentor category and so it was given a different name. The Hedge Sparrow is Dead; Long live the Dunnock.

But let's get back to the numbers. Hang on, it won't be a fun ride. Those 175(ish) kinds of Sparrows make up just a small section of the total number of species across the globe. The general consensus is that there are currently 10,824 different types of bird in the world although some of those are on the very brink of extinction.

The EU and UK has about 445 native bird species and the RSPB has reported that the vast majority of these declined by around 18% between 1980 and 2017. I suspect that in the years since that report was compiled, the figure will be even more shocking. I hope you're still with me. I know it's all not happy reading but these figures are about to get worse.

Taking it to an individual level, there are very approximately, give or take the odd Feral Pigeon, around 160 million birds that call my British homeland theirs too. That might sound like a lot but it's about 40 million fewer individual birds than when I was born in the 1960's. In terms of people, that would be about the entire population of Canada or Poland, wiped out in a lifetime. Shocking, isn't it?

And therein lies the reason for the RSPB's existence. Those plummeting numbers? That's why we keep asking for your help, so that we can try and reverse that trend, if only a little. We buy patches of land so that they have places to eat and breed. We put pressure on governments and big businesses both here and abroad to try to stop them making decisions that have catastrophic consequences for the natural world. And we raise awareness so that people like you and me might consider what they can do to stop the decimation of the wildlife that we all love.

If you could think about joining us to help our work, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

I have only seen a small portion of all the bird species in the world yet every one is magnificent and still holds the power to take my breath away. But I can't say that I've seen any more beautiful than our humble Common Kingfisher.

And if you've yet to see one of these majestic Kings of all fishers, come and have a chat with us at Old Moor's Welcome Shed. We'll be happy to point out the best places on the reserve to see them. Just don't expect us to direct you towards a Hedge Sparrow.