And The Fields Fall Silent
On the loss of birds from the British Countryside
The British Trust for Ornithology recently published a tool which shows the number of breeding bird species that have been lost from the place you live since 1970. Typing one’s postcode into the online tool brings up a list of now-extinct species from the 1 km square surrounding one’s home. The results of the BTOs research are dumbfounding - our “green and pleasant land” has 73 million fewer breeding birds than in 1970, with many areas (including my own) having lost more than 20 species. The same statistic is likely to be repeated for other industrialised countries the world over, such is the universality of modern-day biodiversity loss.
As a lifelong birdwatcher, the list of species lost from the 1 km square of my home city of Chelmsford and its surroundings was heartbreaking. I discovered that species I have dreamed of seeing used to grace the fields and woods around me, and birds that I now have to travel far to see once could be found on my doorstep - Nightjar, Redstart, and Red-backed Shrike - beautiful and charismatic birds whose presence brings joy to any nature lover. In order to see these birds now, I would have to travel hundreds of kilometres and in the case of the Red-backed Shrike, the English Channel would need to be crossed. The wild landscapes surrounding my home are a dim shadow of what they once were and what they once contained, and the dawn chorus that greets me as I awake each morning has lost many singers from its choir.
The sadness this brings is profound.
Many are the probable causes for these widespread local (and national) extinctions that have plagued the UK. Agricultural intensification post-World War Two is among the most pressing1. Traditional farm management regimes which provided many species with habitats and food have disappeared from the landscape, falling victim to agricultural intensification, the proliferation of big machinery, and ill-thought-out agricultural policies as James Rebanks outlines:
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