My bird of the day is the Blackbird. As well as the two books mentioned in earlier posts, I am drawing on the charming book above, Bird Lore, the Myths, Magic and Folklore of Birds, Quadrille, 2025, by Sally Coulthard, which has delightful illustrations by Clover Robin. It turns out that the “calling birds” in The Twelve Days of Christmas are a misprint. These are colly birds, or Blackbirds. In some areas the bird is still known as the colly, a word with ancient roots. The practise of putting songbirds into pies is recalled in Sing a Song of Sixpence, a practice going back to the fifteenth century.
The Blackbird is on the cover of one of the other books. I learn that their numbers in gardens – an environment which seems to suit them very well – decline in the autumn owing to the need for secrecy during their moult and that they have been known to eat tadpoles, newts and fish from ponds (but mostly earthworms, insects, fruit and berries). I have witnessed myself how territorial they are in the form of “short, violent fights”. I am reminded that they are members of the thrush family. Nest predation is less of a concern for them in gardens where cats and Magpies pose the main risks, whereas in woodland there are additional predators to contend with. I had not realised that we see a large number of migrants ass well as the resident birds.
Returning to British Wildlife, February 2026, magazine, David Hampson and Emma Hawthorne explain, in ‘England’s Protected sites: an opportunity to drive nature’s recovery is being missed’, referring to Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection areas (SSIs, SACs and SPAs – there are a lot of acronyms in this article), that the problem is not with the legislation but with monitoring, reporting and regulation. More than 60% of SSSIs for example are in “unfavourable condition.” “The main drivers of the poor condition of protected sites have for long been well known. They include land management activities, such as inappropriate grazing, air and water pollution, drainage and water abstraction, invasive non-native species, disturbance and climate change.” I would have assumed that most of these would have been things from which the sites would automatically have been protected at all costs.
Progress was made between 2000 and 2010, but after 2011 the trend was deterioration and lack of implementation in part due to the failings of Natural England and lack of resources. The authors make excellent recommendations for change but I am not optimistic while our current government is in power. Even the so-called ending of the badger cull at last is only almost there – one licence has yet to run its course and a loophole has been left just in case.
In ‘The Strawberry Tree’ Pàdraic Fogarty makes a similar point about Marine Protected Areas – promises but no actual legislation for designation. Six UK fish species are critically endangered. Tangle nets are a big part of the problem. These are nets weighted to the seabed and left for up to ten days, many of them never recovered and becoming permanent, indiscriminate death traps. The victims of bycatch include these species between 2017 and 2024: 1,161 Grey Seals, 81 Angel Sharks, 1,712 Flapper Skate, 53 Tope, 81 Sting Rays, White Skate, Undulate Ray, Common Dolphin and Risso’s Dolphin. Two of those fall into the critically endangered category. “No amount of reports, plans or legislation seems to be able to motivate the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to fulfil its duty to comply with environmental laws or impose some order on fishing …”
A sensible article on rewilding reports on the monitoring of a particular estate, concluding that whilst it can be “powerful force for good in the protection and restoration of bird life in the uplands”, sometimes trade-offs have to be made – it is not a magic wand.
In the mammals section of the always astonishingly comprehensive wildlife reports there are two sad stories, one of a Fin Whale Calf, the other of a Grey Seal, both of which had to be euthanised so as not to prolong their suffering. Euthanising an animal as large as a whale is problematic. Insufficient drug quantities available and the fact that ballistics “will only work on animals up to a certain size”. So for this Fin Whale a new method of drug delivery was used.
Beavers have been seen on the River Wensum for the first time in 500 years, possibly the result of beaver bombing. There is hope that there will be many more licensed releases over the next few years but the National Farmers Union is doing its utmost to obstruct them citing negative and disruptive impacts, management requirements, costs and risks. Without defining any of them. Beavers can manage themselves just fine thanks.
In conservation news we read that England’s Landscape Recovery programme will now be given a fraction of the promised money and DEFRA’s Environmental Improvement Plan (to increase biodiversity on farmland) is already being watered down. The government has also u-turned on the promised right to roam following pressure from the NFU and Countryside Alliance. The Water White Paper, largely to be welcomed, is woefully inadequate when it comes to pollution from farm run-off.
In Birdwatch magazine, also mentioned in an earlier post, contributors tell of their ‘spark’ birds, birds who turned their casual interest into a lifelong passion. For me I suppose it was the Avocet when I became a junior member of the RSPB many, many years ago and first visited Minsmere. The contributors cite Black Terns, the Tawny Owl, the Eurasian Sparrowhawk, the Yellowhammer, the Hoopoe, the Redpoll and the Great Spotted Woodpecker.
David Callaghan is very interesting on the subject of flightless birds. It seems they have evolved in that way because they do not need to fly in relatively isolated and safe environments (although there are plenty of other reasons and there are plenty of predators to worry about). They tend to be on the large side of course. An then there are those birds which use their wings for swimming instead of flight (I remember being told that penguins don’t have wings once). There are flightless subspecies which are surprising including of ducks, geese, rails, grebes, cormorants and parrots.
I like the sound of Karen R. Jones Beastly Britain; an animal history, Yale University Press, 2025, reviewed in the mgazine. She celebrates overlooked, ignored or persecuted species “in an enthusiastic and upbeat style, which complements the vast volume of knowledge that she crams into each chapter.”
Also good to be reminded of some birds’ eye basics: very little movement is possible so they have to move their heads to look around. Owls have tubular eyes for night vision, raptors round, flat eyes with which they can see up to eight times more sharply than humans. And birds can see ultraviolet light.
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