Madam,

It is with some regret that I see there was a demonstration on 22 September in London to tell the government that all the songbirds in Britain are like our “Brexiteers” losing their way to survive and are near-extinct in Britain!

There are many who find that the once-common blackbird and robin have either not been seen or heard. This I have noticed here in mid Wales where I once walked through woods and fields with the accompaniment of many birds - their songs and presence.

Such is life. Over the past few years many songbirds that once arrived on my and others’ bird tables have much diminished in numbers. There are flocks of blue tits and house sparrows but no song thrush, great tit, blackbird or even robin, of which I have only seen one in the garden of late.

There is, however, an ever-presence of crows, rooks, jackdaws and the dreaded magpie, whose numbers have greatly increased over the past decades, when they were once a novelty to be seen.

This, in many ways, is because of government policies and the restrictions placed on country life, where there was once control of such predators - foxes, crows and rooks come to mind.

The hunting of foxes has been banned and farmers once went to rookeries and shot their nests, and the same with crows. You might ask how can government policies affect nesting birds? Well from my observations hedges are cut too low in the autumn and too soon in the late summer.

Surely even with the help of bird feeding, the root cause of concern is the imbalance of predators who are eating our songbirds and will the government help by controlling hedgerow cutting?

Will farmers be allowed to leave dead sheep as a food supplement and will the government allow the shooting of rooks and crows in their nests, as once was the norm, without a licence?

Yours etc,

Mohammad Tahla, Llanarth.

Have your say on the local issues affecting you - email [email protected] or join in the conversation on our Facebook page