The other afternoon I was talking to a woman - or, more correctly I was listening to her, - but we won't worry about the difference, who had taken part in the recent survey of bird populations, undertaken for the RSPB.

She was saying that in her garden, which I took to be of a reasonable size, she found only three blackbirds and a robin when she counted.

She said, and I'm sure she was right, that this didn't seem very many.

At home we would have had more birds than that, which could be because we live, essentially, in the middle of a field.

In fact, such is my gardening skill that it is a bit difficult, sometimes, to tell where the garden ends and the field begins.

We can also use the cropping in the nearby fields to promote bird life, an option most do not have.

When the RSPB survey results come out it will be interesting to find out what change there has been year on year.

Nationally, as a result of organisations such as the RSPB, everyone is much more aware of bird populations and the distribution of the various species.

In some parts of the country, because farming patterns have changed dramatically over the last 30 or so years, many ground-nesting birds are very scarce.

If a bird needs to eat the flies which thrive on uncut grass tussocks, then regular cutting of the grass for silage is going to be a problem.

Modern winter-sown cereals and oil seed rape reduce the nesting places available for skylarks.

There are areas, such as the reserves on the lower Derwent, where action has been taken to reverse the modern methods and improvements in numbers and in variety are being observed.

Restoration of bird numbers is going to take active intervention.

It will not just happen. Man is the dominant species on the planet at the moment.

The time he has been dominant is not very long, compared, for example, to the time the dinosaurs were roaming the earth.

But he is paramount right now. There are counter arguments. None of us will be around to judge when a historic perspective is available. We may not be as successful long term as, for example, the rat.

Sitting within many of our houses is a silent and ruthless killer of birds. Usually they are asleep. Often purring.

Anyone who has seen a cat deal with a bird cannot but be impressed with their efficiency.

We find it hard to believe that the amiable animal, sleeping in front of the fire, is such a deadly hunter.

The explosion in the number of feral cats during the last few years has coincided with the decline in the numbers of birds.

This has applied especially to birds in the urban areas.

One of the other reasons we have birds in our garden, is that we don't have magpies.

There seems to be a major increase in their population, and they are often seen in towns. They are determined stealers of birds' eggs. Many with an interest in game shooting try to catch them and humanely destroy them because of the damage they do to pheasant and partridge populations. The spin-off is that other small birds are protected.

That is a small example of how everything connects together.

In all these connections is man. The balance of nature has been terminally interfered with by our activities, sometimes deliberately, normally accidentally because we did not think.

We are like a bull in a china shop. It is time we stopped stamping around.

Updated: 12:54 Tuesday, February 12, 2002