Anyone who has ever been splattered beneath a parcel of plummeting droppings has every right to shake their fists to the sky this week, as it has been announced that urban Pigeon numbers have almost doubled in the last twelve years. Whilst our chip-eating, grey feathered friends have been enjoying this population boom, so too has the number of all urban birds increased by 14%. Green woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Robins and Great Tits are all on course to be as common a feature of our suburbs and town squares as the Crested Hoodie and the Skipping Lager Lout.
Well, maybe not quite.
But it's not just birds that are making a home for themselves in towns and cities. Natural England's State of the Natural Environment report, published on Monday, found a general decline in habitats, partly due to climate change and partly due to the pressures of development and agriculture. The result of intensive farming, the report found, was that the birds and bees were buzzing away from the countryside towards urban gardens and brownfield sites, where they can do their thing without being disturbed.
The vast pressures on rural environments mean that some species are now more abundant in suburban areas than in the countryside.The report found at least 40 species of invertebrates that now only exist in such settings. Clearly, our own view of the countryside as a place of retreat from the stresses and strains of the town does not hold for our invertebrate and butterfly brethren. Equally, new developments, though largely environmentally unsound, have been adapted to by some species. Bats, for example, are happily roosting in recent man made structures.
The report goes on to warn that species within specially protected areas, such as SSSI's, are becoming trapped. Climate change means that more and more animals are moving north, away from the areas designed to shelter them from human interference.
Natural England manages £2.9 billion of taxpayers money and has suggested various schemes for preserving species that need very specific habitats in order to survive. One idea is for a new national park to be founded along the coastline, where habitats endangered by human interference and rising sea levels would be better managed and protected. The organisation also wants to bind existing wildlife sites to one another in order to create what it calls 'wildlife super highways.' Whilst the chance for townies to catch a glimpse of birds more unusual, and dare I say it, more loveable, than the ubiquitous pigeon might be a welcome change, let's hope that the 'super highways' are completed before these animals forget that it is the countryside, and not the city, where they really belong.
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This post was written by Matthew Gammie on May 21, 2008