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More than a quarter of UK birds face extinction risk or steep decline – study
Red list entries swell to 67 species as conservationists call for urgent action to save birds of Britain including warblers, curlews and puffins
More than a quarter of UK birds, including the puffin, nightingale and curlew, require urgent conservation efforts to ensure their survival, according to a new report on the state of the UK’s birds.
Since the last review in 2009, an additional 15 species of bird have been placed on the “red list”, a category that indicates a species is in danger of extinction or that has experienced significant decline in population or habitat in recent years. The total number of species on the red list is now 67 out of a total of 247.
Continue reading...Sunshine releases all the sounds of spring
Ebernoe Common, West Sussex Swedes call it ‘early cuckoo morning’ – the act of getting up just to enjoy the first birdsong
The sun is rising above the trees. I cross the meadow, passing gorse bushes bursting with yellow flowers, and enter the wood by the small gate. I walk up the narrow, winding footpath, and a couple of woodcock fly up from the ground, scattering the leaves where they were hiding. The two striped brown birds dart away through the trees in their panic, as if they’d been fired from a gun. I wait for the air to settle after the commotion, look up to the canopy and listen.
Birdsong is everywhere – a wall of sound pulsing through the wood. I pick out the birds, one by one, selectively listening to each song in turn: greenfinch, chaffinch, robin, blackbird, song thrush, nuthatch, great tit, blue tit, and so on.
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