After Wood Pigeons and Jackdaws, the first bird I saw today was a Great Tit. New to me from the garden bird books was the fact that the black chest stripe tapers off in the females but continues downwards and broadens in the males, for whom the width is a status symbol which attracts females and avoids the need for fighting other males. They produce relatively large broods and can work eighteen hours a day for two to three weeks to feed them, collecting some 10,000 caterpillars. The mothers develop a brood patch of bare skin to incubate their eggs.
Birdwatch Magazine, March 2026, issue 405, has a piece by Mark Avery on the damage to wildlife caused by cats. Avery is uncomfortable with people keeping pets and it is true that cat ‘owners’ (I am one) can tend to ignore the inconvenient truth of their effect on bird populations. The RSPB does not want to alienate people with cats but does advise using bells on collars and keeping cats indoors at vulnerable times for birds. Mark Avery puts it into perspective: “Let’s fix farming, climate change, bird flu, illegal raptor killing, habitat loss, river pollution and a range of other issues before we turn to cats.”
Herbicides and the loss of hedgerows and field margins in particular have devastated our Tree Sparrow population. Farm assurance schemes requiring the sealing up of holes in buildings where grain is stored have also taken their toll. Sometimes the birds have been recorded abandoning colonies for reasons entirely unknown to us. House Sparrows, themselves rted listed, can out-compete them to add to their troubles. Conservation projects have helped but now numbers have drastically fallen once more and we don’t know why. They have almost completely disappeared from southern England. Until we know the cause it is hard to know what to do but we may be running out of time.
That’s a Cirl Bunting on the cover. The colours!
Issue 34 of the magazine from Global Justice Now, March 2026, highlights the scandal of corporate courts. Investors use the Investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), or an investment court system (ICS) to sue states and governments for actions which are beneficial in terms of climate change but affect their profits and dividends. The scandalously appalling system permits them to sue not just for sums already invested but for future profits. For example, hedge fund investors in Singapore are suing the UK in a secret corporate court over the failure of the application by West Cumbria Mining to develop a coalmine in Whitehaven. “Fossil fuel investors have raked in over £59 billion [in this way] globally in recent decades. Even if the UK manages to win, legal fees average £3.7 million.” Guess who foots the bill either way?
Spring has brought butterflies to the garden, so far a Peacock or two and a Brimstone. Trees are in bud and some plants are flowering (catkins are flowers too). Bees are buzzing.
In animal rights news, the Welsh government has voted to end greyhound racing, a wonderful victory.
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