INDEX	21 November, 2013
The seaside is not for the birds
I went to the seaside today (Goring). It was bracing (or to put it another way, freezing). Strangely there were no seagulls. To see the gulls I had to come back home to Walthamstow. A decade ago at just about the time we gave up leaded petrol many London birds (particularly sparrows) disappeared. Then the starlings went allegedly because they were being shot in southern Europe. Some of the starlings are back and you even sometimes see a flock of sparrows, but the real change has been the increase in the big birds. Once the pigeon was king (unless a sparrow hawk or kestrel swooped down from the top of a tower block) now it is the ubiquitous gull and the ever more common ring necked parakeet.
INDEX Jonathan Brind		21 November, 2013