Photo: John Richardson
Spotted Flycatcher
Peter Rutt
Garden changes It is a cold dull January afternoon and I’m doing my RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch in my Elmswell garden. I moved here 19 years ago and ‘doing the birdwatch’ has been a family event as my two sons eagerly assisted me over the years, and now they have ‘flown the nest’ it is a solo event as I like the continuity of doing annual surveys. Over the years I recorded a good few species, usually making it into the teens – and this is on a strict interpretation of the rules, no dodgy flyover birds here, they all ‘use’ my garden. This year I got to six species, not even recording Robin or Collared Dove. I felt underwhelmed and slightly depressed. I’ve noticed a big drop in garden bird numbers as Elmswell develops.
When I moved here to my village centre house in 1999 I could not see any other dwelling out of my bedroom windows. I happily filled my Big Garden Birdwatch form in as having a ‘rural’ garden, no way could I contemplate calling it urban. Today I can see 25 houses built in the last 15 years. Green spaces have been infilled, houses built behind houses and over the last year a large bungalow has been built on the site of an old orchard. The rotten apples which used to attract Fieldfare and Redwing are gone and the old rotting tree where the Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers would sit and drum also gone.
T H E H AR R I ER – S um m e r 2 0 1 8
7
