There are few songbirds in my neighbourhood, thanks to a deadly cocktail of plastic and paving, climate change and high numbers of predators. There’s little natural food, but adaptable species make do – crows moisten bread and meat in my bird bath, squirrels are given peanuts. These species don’t just outcompete the smaller birds, they eat them too, taking chicks direct from the nest.
It’s nature, of course, but the adaptability of the predators gives them an unfair advantage. Then there are the cats – it was cats that got the goldfinch chicks, just like the magpies got the robins and the squirrels raided the blackbird nest for three consecutive years. (Nature Girl, here, gets all the gruesome stories.) I feel the losses. Goldfinch numbers have halved since I moved in, the blackbird that sang from my roof is gone. I rarely see robins.
