According to the British Trust for Ornithology, over the past 50 years, Britain has lost an astonishing 73 million wild birds from its landscape. Habitat loss, pesticides, disease, cats and the climate crisis mean there are fewer birds than ever before. It may be difficult for children and young people to appreciate the scale of the damage caused by a psychological phenomenon called ‘shifting baseline syndrome’, where each generation inherits a degraded version of the environment, and so the overall degradation is not noticed. But Gen Z is bucking this trend. Bird watching has become cool thanks to social media and the Merlin Bird ID app. To find out what we’re missing in the dawn chorus, and why young people are taking up birdwatching, Madeleine Finlay hears from author Robert MacFarlane and RSPB Youth Council member Jess Painter.
