Personal Comment
By changing what we have done we have changed habitats for many species. Could have been through ignorance, through need and through enough care for the little things.
The Twite - Linaria flavirostis means ‘resembling linen’ and I have never seen one.
The words below I have ‘lifted’ and it’s about their demise or survival.
A small bird once so abundant it was called “the Pennine finch” is teetering on the brink of extinction in England after just 12 pairs bred this summer.
The twite, an inconspicuous, seed-eating bird that nests in the uplands and spends winters on coastal marshes, has suffered a precipitous decline this century, with the breeding population falling by 75% between 1999 and 2013.
Despite a rescue effort led by Natural England and the RSPB, in which hill farmers have been paid to plant “twite meadows” filled with wildflowers that produce the bird’s favourite foods, the bird has continued to decline, falling by another 75% since 2016.
“The way we’re going, we think it will be locally extinct within the next three to five years,” said Katie Aspin, the RSPB’s twite recovery project officer.
Reasons for the bird’s disappearance include less wild seed in upland meadows, climate change and the loss of tall heather in uplands, resulting in twite nesting in bracken where they appear to be more easily preyed on by stoats and weasels.
The genetic diversity and resilience of English twites may also have lessened because the population is now so small it no longer flies overseas in winter.
The key reason for this decline is the poor availability of food during the breeding season because of the loss of species-rich hay meadows and pasture in upland England because of agricultural intensification,” said Aspin.
The twite recovery project has concentrated efforts on the remaining birds breeding in a triangle of uplands between Manchester, Leeds and Halifax. Farmers have been paid through agri-environment schemes to cut hay later in the year, allowing flowers to seed and provide more food for the birds.
More than 250 hectares (618 acres) of twite meadows have also been planted with dandelion, common sorrel and autumn hawkbit to provide food in the breeding season. This summer, 15 supplementary feeding stations also supplied the twite with niger seed.
The twite is one of only two birds in Britain that feed on seeds all year round. Most seed-eating species resort to feeding on protein-rich insects when they are rearing young.
Britain’s migratory birds ‘may stop flying south for winter’
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Each surviving English twite is given a colour ring so it can be individually identified and monitored in a project led by Jamie Dunning, a conservation scientist at Imperial College London.
“The age-old story of massive changes to the way we farm the land is probably the main cause but we suspect there’s some aspect of climate change going on here as well,” said Dunning. The bird is at the southern edge of its range in England.
According to Dunning, a few twite have nested on the cliffs of limestone quarries but have then been disturbed by the quarrying. In their core area of the south Pennines, large areas of grouse moor are also unsuitable for the birds because the moors are burnt and the heather is not allowed to grow tall enough for twite to nest in it.
Researchers also fear that twite may be further hit by lower food availability in the winter, which English twite usually spend on salt marshes along the east coast.
While there is a small Scottish population of twite, conservation scientists are warning that it is experiencing similar declines, and Britain’s unique subspecies of twite could be at risk of complete extinction.
“Scotland is our last chance to protect the population here which is a unique subspecies,” said Dunning. “It’s about learning lessons now to protect the populations that exist further north.”
But the twite, whose scientific name, Linaria flavirostris, means “resembling linen”, may also have suffered because it is a species that has slipped from collective consciousness and even birdwatchers don’t really know about it.
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