Songbirds

Viscount Falkland Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Grand Committee

[Viscount Falkland (CB)]

My Lords, at first glance I thought this Question was rather daunting, and that the reference to invasive, non-native species was a sort of new bird-Brexit talk. Having heard the excellent speeches which preceded mine, I now understand exactly what people are talking about. From the perspective of someone with a 95-foot garden, I am not equipped to talk about a lot of the things which large landowners will mention in this debate. I have noticed extraordinary changes in my garden over the nearly 30 years that I have lived there. I have not found a particular problem with the invasive ringed green parakeet on the bird table, although there is an awful lot of noise and pushing around. The only confrontation I have seen was with a greater spotted woodpecker, who stood and maintained his ground. There are very few songbirds—and I agree that there is probably an overall decrease in them. Of course, they eat insects more than they go to bird tables.

My interest in birds began at a very early age. My father took me to the coast, close to where we lived in Devon, to try and take the oil off the feathers of puffins, whose wings had become immobilised. I was only three years old, so I was hardly fit to judge whether he was very effective at that, but I enormously admired his efforts. From that point, birds have been an important part of my life. I luckily ran pretty well free and without discipline through my childhood during the Second World War, as both my parents were involved in the war effort in one way or another. Birds were one of my interests when I was in both the south of England and Scotland. I had all the necessary books to identify them and to pontificate to my friends on the subject, and that was maintained throughout my life until I went to an organised boarding school. What shocked me there was that I saw very little of birds outside but I saw a lot of stuffed birds, stuffed fish and stuffed everything—stuffed teachers, if you will. So that was a bleak period, except that I qualified for a bicycle by joining the natural history society. I used to say that I was using the bicycle to watch the mallards at the Binfield brickworks, but that was an excuse for going to the cinema in Bracknell, which at that time was a one-horse town.

One notable time for me during my bird-watching life was when I went to Africa on business, and I went to Lake Nakuru and saw the flamingos. Back then, in the early 1970s, there were between 2 million and 3 million flamingos. It was a fantastic sight and they made a fantastic sound. Their food source was the algae in the alkaline lake. Unfortunately, the lake has been subject to pollution in east Africa, and now there are just a few flamingos around the perimeter of the lake. So the reduction in bird numbers is a worldwide problem.

I end by saying that the public need much more information about birds. I highly praise the BBC for its “Springwatch” and “Autumnwatch” programmes. The other day I spoke to the chairman of the BBC and said, “That really is a star programme. Do keep up the good work”. I think that he was quite grateful for my words.

That is all I have to say. I continue with my bird interest in the mornings. I sit there with my porridge and coffee and have my field glasses to hand. I look at my garden and the bird table. I agree with the noble Earl, who in his excellent speech made a point about cats. That is where education is needed. People who have cats need to realise that they need to be controlled and kept away from the birdlife.