Watching birds

Next weekend in the UK is the Big Garden Birdwatch, and event organised nationwide by the RSPB. It is a survey of the wild birds that visit our gardens at this time of year, logged by citizen scientists (members of the public), and giving the RSPB an idea of how our birds are doing.

The event began in 1979, at a time when we were beginning to fully realised the effect humans have on the natural world. Over the last 60, the UK has lost around 38 million birds, and 60 species are not on the British Ornithology Society’s red list of Birds of Conservation Concern. Of these, three are garden birds that were once much more common: starlings, house sparrows, and tree sparrows.

We don’t yet completely understand why many of these birds are disappearing, although it can be assumed that loss of habitat and food supply has a lot to do with it. Modern farming methods kill insects that are the main food source of many birds, and that combined with loss of berry trees due to farming, deforestation, and climate change means that many garden birds are almost entirely dependant on kind humans providing seed and mealworms.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen my art that garden birds are very important to me. I am often surprised, however, that more people do not recognise that this decline in bird numbers is just one symptom of a huge problem that will eventually determine the continuation of human life (any life) on this planet. Fewer birds may be due to fewer insects, and fewer insects means less pollination, which means less food for everyone, bird, animal, and human alike. It will not matter how big our fields become, without pollination there will be no harvest.

It’s not too late to sign up for the Big Garden Birdwatch (see below), and add your data to the collection. It’s not too late to help our birds, and the rest of life, as well. Bird feeders are a start, but also consider planting berry-rich trees and hedges, seedhead plants such as teasel, and flowering plants suitable for pollinators to visit all through the year. Even better, stop using poisons in your garden, especially pesticides and herbicides, that injure the wild world. Let your grass grow long, the dandelions flower, and your garden grow wild at the edges.

Come back at the weekend for a quick guide to how to sketch any feathered visitors that come to your garden.

If you are in the UK and would like to sign up for the Big Garden Birdwatch, click this link!