Hello
I was born in 1940 and schooled and worked in Cambridge till 1974. I have holidayed in Wales since 1944. First in North Wales and from 1957 in Mid Wales.
Since 1957 here, as I now live there, the countryside has changed immeasurably. The hills here then were all covered in Gorse and Heather. Grouse, Snipe and Peewit were all over the place, plus Buzzards. Streams ran constantly and never flooded, and many different species of Butterflies and Moths abounded.
Then, in the 1960s , farm subsidies led to all the hillside being grubbed up, land drainage installed and foreign grasses planted for sheep. The Grouse, Snipe and Peewits all disappeared, streams dried up and flooded after rain and now there are very few Butterflies, just Ringlets and Meadow Brown and Small White-nothing else this year, though normally Red Admiral, Peacock and Tortoiseshell visit the Buddleia (sic).
Fields are Limed, neutralising the natural peat and altering the flora.
The bird population in the garden has changed too. No more Yellowhammers, far fewer Song Thrush, but from about 10 years ago lots of House Sparrows and Starlings. The Tree Sparrow has gone. All the Tits arrive plus Chaffinches, Magpies get more and more and also Pheasants are here most days. Out and about Skylarks have all gone, but Meadow Pipits are increasing, as are Red Kite and the Buzzards are a constant. Even saw a Goshawk a year or two ago.
I lived in Bedford before moving here and all the House Sparrows had disappeared there, also Kestrels from the rural roadsides and I wondered whether the different chemical make up of Unleaded Petrol was to blame for this as its introduction seemed to coincide with this?
Unknown said:.................... I wondered whether the different chemical make up of Unleaded Petrol was to blame for this as its introduction seemed to coincide with this?
Unleaded petrol had been in use long before leaded came to be the norm for most cars. The change that occured ten years ago was to vehicle engines , not the fuel , to enable them to run efficiently without the need for lead additives. Removing the lead was a major benefit to the environment.
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when I was a kid the farms around my village had fields with hederows. fields for crops and fields for grazing. at least a couple of ponds Plus several orchards
now its one enormous cornfield. no hedgrows, no bluebell wood or tinkers wood,and no ponds or running streams. even the old raiway lines are filled in.
certainly brings back happy childhood memories when mum wouldnt see us all day.
and we all had rosy cheeks. makes you realise what todays kids don't have
RAY
a good laugh is better than a tonic
Ah but, Ray and Doggie, it all depends where you live. Not all areas are like that as I know well from all my travels round the British counties. Even my own area still has small fields with natural hedgerows, but maybe this is because there are no crops here so no need for huge fields and great expanses of corn. Many councils have converted old disused railway lines into cycle paths and public footpaths, and these are now alive with wildlife. It isn't all bad news. It just depends on where you live.
Cheers, Linda.
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I was born in '43 and yes the countryside has changed a lot since then,not all of it for the worse.Farming in those days employed more people but from what I remember it was harder work,no air con.tractor cabs in fact not that many tractors in our bit of wild Yorkshire.More birds out in the fields that's for sure and more hedges with the smaller fields.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Hi sparrow
I can only talk about my area and thankfully there is still countryside.
But people won't miss what they haven't had
Ray
Unknown said:But people won't miss what they haven't had
Ray, Absolutely right. This is known as a 'shifting baseline'. Mainly a generational thing but along the lines of I saw hundreds of lapwing as a child and accepted it as normal but didn't realise my grandfather saw thousands of lapwing and accepted it as normal. My grandchildren see 20 lapwing and accept it as normal. If you accept something as normal you don't push to change it.
I do note in the replies above the comments that 'in my area we still have birds'. Unfortunately this is a problem because populations are becoming isolated. It puts them under threat and some can't repopulate when numbers become locally extinct. My neighbours keep asking me why house sparrows are in decline when the neighbour has got 50 in the garden. I have 20 most days but I know that London has none and the decline is tremendous.
I don't want to keep pushing one book but, if you haven't bought it, buy Mark Avery's 'Fighting for Birds'. It explains a lot of this in very clear and logical language.
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
My Flicker page
Can I add in another book that explains this in a very readable manner. Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael Mccarthy. This is an excellent well written and quite a beautiful book to read.
www.amazon.co.uk/.../1848540639
Many thanks Bob
will have a look
I was reffering to the introduction of unleaded from 1989 in the UK, which is when Sparrows and Kestrels started to disappear from towns and roadsides, and this was exagerated in 2000 with the total ban on leaded fuel, which might have benefitted the environment, though I never heard of anyone dying of air borne lead particles, as they were heavier than air and fell to the ground.
www.foe.co.uk/.../leaded_unleaded.pdf
I think you need to look elsewhere for the reasons behind the Kestrel decline. Also I can happily report that I have seen more Kestrels this year than in the last five to ten years although they remain far less common than they once were. You are now more likely to see a Buzzard perched on a motorway fence than see a Kestrel hovering over the embankments.
http://www.bto.org/birdtrends2010/wcrkestr.shtml