I was reminded today of something that MG once told me. How the smallest, seemingly insigificant action on the part of a human being can have a profound impact on the ecology of a small microcosm of the environment.
Many years ago (I won't tell you exactly how many, I don't want to embarrass the lad), MG's parents moved to a house in a slightly less built-up area of London sandwiched inbetween three quite sizable parks; all containing moderately large lakes. This started, amongst other things, an abiding passion for birds (of the feathered variety) and, later, a love of capturing what he saw around him in paint. Poor MG had been hithertoo restricted to seeing feral pigeons, starlings and house sparrows with only the occasional swift in the summer months. In that first year, he spotted greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, dunnocks, fieldfares, redwings, nuthatches, kestrels, jays, magpies, spotted woodpeckers, blue titmice, great titmice and a few more besides.
One of his alleged highspots was watching from the kitchen window as house martins, summer visitors like the swifts, careered wildly at low level chasing flying insects across the small patch of grass which lay before the railway arches of a small viaduct which passed in between houses; the site of his house was, at one time, home to one of the holes that Hitler's Luftwaffe made whenever they got lost over London during the Blitz. It was not long before he located the nesting colony of some twenty nests tucked under the eaves and gutters of the large houses in a neighbouring street.
Every year, the martins would return and build their nests from mud gathered from the local parks under the eaves of the same houses each time. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason why particular houses in that particular street were chosen; it was all terribly random with often three nests in close proximity to each other and the next one fifty yards away.
Out walking with the dog one year, MG saw a single householder demolishing a newly built nest from under the gutter of his house and presumably just outside his bedroom window. One can perhaps understand this. People have a tendency to leave their windows open during the summer, even in the dismal British climate, and martin chicks can be quite raucous in their demand for food from the returning adults and, presumably, this householder had become sick of being woken up at 4:30am by the three or four screaming nestlings. Quite within his rights on his own property, I hear you say. And, to some extent, it is difficult to argue with that, although in the light of what happened subsequently I might make the attempt.
Within a month, perhaps prompted by the solitary householder desperate to sleep late, every other householder in the road had demolished their own nests. It was too late for the parents to build another nest and the martins disappeared and presumably did not breed that year; they have not returned. Whether the small colony just upped and moved locations in the following year, MG cannot say but one thing was evident; if the colony had moved, it was far enough away for the martins never to be seen in the skies around his house or within a mile of it. Maybe the little colony survived, or at least the individuals did, to breed again and maybe they didn't. In the grand scheme of things, why does it matter?
Because the grand scheme of things is made of these tiny, insignificant acts by humans and what one person does inevitably leads to other following suit and so on. It doesn't take long for everything to spiral out of control and lead to disaster; just ask the Northern Right Whale!
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