Death of the dawn chorus
IF you are an early riser you will be familiar with the dawn chorus.
And if you’re a late riser, no doubt you think the birds sound too loud!
However 50 years ago it was much louder and in that time we’ve lost 40 million birds, according to the RSPB.
The UK’s birds can be split into three categories of conservation importance – red, amber and green.
The UK Red List keeps track of how different species are doing and those on the red list (67 species) are in need of urgent help.
The Red list criteria includes globally threatened species and UK species who are in severe decline (at least 50%) in breeding population over last 25 years.
One in four birds are on that list and many of the UK’s iconic crooners are among them like nightingales, skylarks and cuckoos hence the death of the dawn chorus.
Common garden birds like starlings, song thrushes and house sparrows are also on the list.
Amber is the next most critical group and includes species in moderate decline (25 to 50 percent) with fewer than 3000 breeding pairs in the UK.
Species on the green list are the least critical group that occur regularly in the UK.
COUNTING BIRDS
Dr Mark Eaton, one of the RSPB’s Principal Conservation Scientists, is responsible for collecting the data on bird conservation and numbers.
Mark and his team analyse hundreds of statistics from monitoring schemes such as the Breeding Bird Survey and the Wetland Bird Survey.
Mark explains: “Thanks to thousands of volunteers – counting birds, doing surveys, getting their data to organisations such as the RSPB, BTO and WWT – birds are probably amongst the best monitored groups of wildlife on the planet, and especially so in the UK.
“We produce lots of stats which enable us to assess whether each species should go onto one of our lists of conservation concern.
“Either amber for moderate concern or red which are the ones we are really worried about.
“To be on the red list you need to be a bird of highest conservation concern, meaning you’re in a pretty bad way.
“You’ve declined very rapidly, you’re at risk of extinction globally, or you are historically depleted, meaning you are at much lower population levels that you were in the past.”
* To see what you can do to help or make a donation visit www.rspb.org. uk/join-and-donate/donate/ appeals/red-alert/