14Ingham’s W RLD
COVID forged a stronger bond between many of us and the natural world. Getting out in the open, seeing thrushes foraging for food, the flash of yellow as goldfinches flew past, or hearing an owl hoot helped keep many of us sane. One of nature’s most spectacular displays is the dawn chorus. Every spring I get up at an unearthly hour, tiptoe out of the bedroom before the sun is up, make a coffee and then sit in my garden.
I let nature’s orchestra warm up, robins or song thrushes usually leading the way, until the music reaches a crescendo in May’s cheering light.
Each time I question my sanity at rising at 4am when I don’t need to.Yet each time I feel reborn.
But the dawn chorus is getting quieter. Experts at the University of East Anglia and colleagues across Europe and America monitored 200,000 sites over the last 25 years.
Lead author Dr Simon Butler told Nature Communications: “We found a widespread decline in the acoustic diversity and intensity of natural soundscapes, driven by changes in the composition of bird communities.
“These results suggest the soundtrack of spring is getting quieter and less varied and that one of the fundamental pathways through which humans engage with nature is in chronic decline, with potentially widespread implications for human health and wellbeing.”
The decline is driven in part by a huge decline in birds. The RSPB says there are 40 million fewer birds in Britain compared to the 1970s. America has lost 3 billion breeding birds since then.
The disappearing species include some of the best singers – nightingales, down 93 per cent since 1967, and skylarks, down 63 per cent.
Loss of habitat, intensive farming, urban development and so on are to blame. But this isn’t just bad for birds. It is bad for us.
If more people got back in touch with nature, the world would be a happier place. Better still, the declines in wildlife – 15 per cent of our species are facing extinction here and 41 per cent are in decline – would have a good chance of being reversed or at least halted.
And trust me, there are few better ways to reconnect with nature than to immerse yourself in the dawn chorus.
THIRTEEN lucky elephants could be returned to the wild by the Aspinall Foundation – the first herd in the world ever to be rewilded. Kenyan officials have been to Howletts Wild Animal Park near Canterbury to prepare the move.
It’s Aspinall’s latest rewilding scheme following 20 years of returning gorillas to the jungle.
GREEN TIP: Help preserve forests by cutting your paper use – ask for digital bank statements and for emailed receipts.