Recent reports from conservation bodies reveal that Britain has lost about forty million birds of various species since the nineteen nineties.

This is a serous state of affairs blamed on a combination of factors including habitat loss.

I was recently given a fascinating list of birds recorded on Wimbledon Common and inner Surrey during 1919. There are some startling revelations.

For example, seen in large flocks were skylark, house sparrow,rook and ring dove while small flocks of bullfinch, hawfinch, linnet, lesser redpoll, meadow and tree pipit and yellow hammer were common.

Cuckoo and nightingale were often heard while wryneck and red-backed shrike, now very rare were sighted.

Oddly, heron, kestrel, moorhen, coot, nuthatch and treecreeper were not listed but are common now.

Indeed there are increases in populations including great crested and little grebe, mallard, wren, goldcrest, goldfinch, great spotted and green woodpecker and chaffinch (pictured).

However the overall trend is clear, leading me to pen the following lament for countryside birds,circa 2050.

Will swallows be flocking on telephone wires and swifts still speed screaming round lofty church spires?

Will nightingales thrill country dwellers at twilight and skylarks ascend to sing sweetly at first light?

Will cuckoos return as they did years ago and the dawn chorus echo through woods and hedgerow?

Will yellowhammers sing about bread and no cheese and greenfinches utter their long-winded 'wheeeze'?

Will we watch lapwings tumbling aerial displays or hear chiffchaff and willow warblers on sunny days?

Will those glorious birdsongs that we can now hear be mere cherished memories from yesteryear?

For at the present steep rate of decline To lose countryside birds seems a matter of time.