Sunday 17 January 2016

The last Tree Sparrows



 Kojak and I went looking for Tree Sprogs this morning. Had a pair and a spare and possibly two extra birds. So literally hanging on by the skin of their teeth. The population was nearly a 1000 birds post breeding in 2007 and there were still 100 broods in 2012. The decline was sudden. Nearly all of the target species for conservation are now either extinct or in drastic decline at Beddington presumably  a result of the lack of implementation of the conservation management plan by Viridor.
Had this Marsh Harrier go over today too. Also the cold weather produced a small influx of Redwings and also surprisingly Blackbirds- at least 12 between Mile Road Bridge and Irrigation Bridge. Also 3 Jack Snipe, 4 Water Pipit, 100+ Linnet, 20 Goldfinch and 15+ Mipit. 

2 comments:

Jonathan Lethbridge said...

Peter, what is going on at your patch is a crying shame.

Peter Alfrey said...

It's corporate vandalism Jono supported by the Conservation NGOs.
Viridor are funding a lot of the conservation NGOs : http://www.viridor-credits.co.uk/projects/project-database/biodiversity/
Presumably Beddington is a sacrifice area. What a stupid conservation model- destroy huge areas of biodiversity with the potential to educate millions of people living in London (who ultimately support the anti-conservation corps by their consuming habits- when can be changed with the right resources) and pay off the conservation community by paying them to do relatively pointless and small projects in already well off and well protected areas- (mostly the West Country where Viridor are from) e.g. re-introducing Common Cranes (already colonising naturally in the UK!!!)
The NGOs are going to suffer in the end- once these companies know they can get away with murder, they'll dump the sell out Conservation NGO facilitators. They're already cutting funding- I hope they cut it to nothing. Then they'll need to focus on where they should have done- focusing on supporting local wildlife groups and volunteers groups instead of trying to capitalise conservation. Sickening and stupid- a complete own goal.