All very trendy

The Safari is looking at the movers and shakers in the much less widespread ‘category’, those found in only 100 – 499 of the c3000 BBS squares

Grey Lag and Canada Geese are both up significantly – time to get free-range feral goose on the menu at Christmas instead of shed-bred Turkey? Wouldn’t be a bad idea but it’d take a fantastic advertising campaign to sell it to the masses!

Tufted Duck are doing quite nicely with an almost 50% increase – more gravel pits?

One of the birds of our youth isn’t doing well at all, Grey Partridge – down by over 50% - what’s causing the difference between them and Red Legged Partridges – less introductions, less well suited to the current farming regime, spring/summer weather conditions, a combination or something else???

Sparrowhawks are down nearly  10% over the last 25 years and there we were believing they were tearing the hearts out of all the little birds on everybody’s feeders, must be the surveyors can’t see into the back gardens! Saw one putting the gulls and Starlings to flight over the work's garden this lunchtime, not at all regular here - P2 # 80

Coot, another of our top five favourites, are enjoying a 33% increase – excellent, lots more for KB and his crew to colour ring and shed yet more light on the mysterious movements of these ‘sedentary’ nomads.

Turtle Dove – where there were 100 in 1996 there are now only 20...and we didn’t get a chance to twitch the one locally a couple of weeks ago...AAAARRRGGGHHH. The biggest fall of any species surveyed!

A bit less spring hunting taking out the current crop of about to breed adults in the Mediterranean area wouldn’t go amiss...but then there’s got to be enough of the right type of ‘weed’ = arable-lands wildflower seed available in our fields which we fear these days there isn’t.

Raven – no change. An  interesting one this as they seem to be spreading and turning up in places that 25 years ago you wouldn’t have dreamt of seeing them. Are there fewer in the old ‘core’ areas?

Sand Martin – up 60% but subject to the vagaries of summer flooding and winter quarters drought so anything could happen in the next 25...encouraging all the same though as it means there must be plenty of insects around our rivers.

Garden Warblers down 9%, made up for by the equally secretive but thankfully vocal Lesser Whitethroats – up 8%

Sedge Warbler – up 14%, however locally and perhaps wider too according to the geographic spread of blogs we read are having a torrid season this year but their overall population seems to be more dependent on conditions in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are now almost double to number of Nuthatches but their woodland habitat neighbours, Treecreepers have stayed about the same. Although their diets are quite different.

Spotted Flycatchers with an invertebrate diet, like Treecreepers, however are among the species with the largest declines, certainly round Safari-land they are becoming increasingly hard to find. They have suffered the same percentage fall as Pied Flycatchers although the latter have a more specific habitat requirement and are much less widespread. Is there something wrong with the populations of larger insects in our woodlands? If so what?

Tree Sparrow – at last a success story – twice as many as in 1996. there are a couple of nest box scheme in Safari-land and no doubt these will have helped to boost numbers but such a rise can’t be totally due to the provision of nest boxes. It’s alright saying there’s nearly twice as many now as in 1996 but 30 years prior to that there were 30 times as many! The plummet coming in the late 70s and early half of the 80s slowing but still falling until bottoming out in the early 90s...anything to do with Margaret Thatcher???

One species we don’t come across very frequently anymore is the Yellow Wagtail, note that these survey statistics refer to the British race which as you can tell only occurs on these isles so we have a global responsibility to look after them...one we’re not taking seriously enough if half of them have disappeared in the last 25 years. Lack of insects in farmland seems to be the main driver as agriculture has intensified with less plant diversity in pastures and intensive use of chemicals on livestock. They also run the risk of adverse conditions on their West African wintering grounds.

You’re unlikely to get yellow wagtails at your feeders but Siskins and Redpolls are becoming far more frequent frequents of free nosh and both are enjoying a bit of a purple patch, Siskins more so than the Redpolls which have plateau-ed out down in the dumps after a big peak during the 70s.

And two buntings to finish with...Reed Buntings on the rise again at last after another ‘Thatcher driven’ decline. Great to see plenty on the nature reserve these days, they were far less common when we first worked there.

Corn Buntings on the other hand continue to fare badly and are still on the slippery slope to oblivion. Shame as this was another species of our youth; the rattly, but cheery, little song and dangly legs when taking flight noted in the old Ladybird Book of Farmland Birds were regularly heard and seen on ‘our’ farm in the 60’s and 70s, so sad that many of today’s youngsters will never experience it as a matter of course like we were able to. But like we’ve said before what you don’t know you won’t miss and that is the saddest thing of all when it comes to looking at these statistics – how much has gone that won’t have had the opportunity to be missed.

Of course there are lots of winners and it is truly great to see Buzzards. Red Kites (depending on your location) and Sparrowhawks doing well (ish) after years of near-constant persecution and the DDT fiasco lets hope neither of those dark days reappear. Some of the other winners aren’t quite so welcome; the explosion in feral geese and other incomers such as the fun but potentially ‘dangerous’ Ring Necked Parakeets. All the more reason to keep monitoring the waxing and waning fortunes of our wildlife.

Wherever you are please extol the virtues of watching, enjoying and recording your local wildlife and if you can spare a few hours a year volunteer your services on one (or more) of the national surveys – we’re sure many of you already do.

More detailed info about the species mentioned and plenty of others too can be found here and here 

Now for something completely different...a few hover pics from the hundreds, nay thousands that were gracing the Ragwort in thee untidy bit of the garden when the sun came out - heaving with em it was! 

The first one is an Eristalis sp

 This one is probably Helophilus trivittatus, a female.

Bit of a Swallow passage noted on the way back to Base Camp this arvo included a Swift - won't see many more of those for a while!

Where to next? Hopefully a bit of nocturnal activity to report on tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know what's whizzing around the flowers in droves in your outback.