During the last few decades, the population of British House Sparrows has declined by roughly half, causing great alarm among both scientists and the general public. However, the latest data from the British Trust for Ornithology's (BTO) Garden BirdWatch, suggests that the decline is levelling off in our gardens.

The decline of the House Sparrow has been dramatic, falling from around 12 million British pairs in the 1970s to between six and seven million pairs currently, with a greater reduction in population size in urban and rural areas, than in suburban ones. Given that gardens are thought to be a particularly valuable habitat for our House Sparrows, it is encouraging that the latest BTO Garden BirdWatch data indicate that numbers are stabilizing, which is also reflected in data from the wider countryside.

The reasons behind the decline very much depend on population location, as House Sparrows are fairly sedentary birds. Populations across Britain were affected by loss of nesting sites and food sources, especially the lack of invertebrates to feed their young. However, in rural areas, changes in farming practices are thought to have had a large effect but in urban and suburban populations causes were more complex and may have included increased competition with other birds and increased pesticide use in gardens.

Clare Simm, from the BTO Garden Ecology Team, said: "This complexity is also reflected in the factors that are driving the change in this delightful bird's fortunes. We are a nation of wildlife lovers and more people are now managing their gardens for wildlife, which will be benefitting our House Sparrows. There is also a greater awareness of clean feeding stations and in reducing garden pesticide use. The combination of these factors could be helping the House Sparrow to maintain its population."

This news does not necessarily mean that House Sparrows are out of danger, as the turning point has only occurred in the last few years. Clare Simm has recommended five simple things that anyone can do in their gardens to encourage House Sparrows:

• Let an area of your garden go wild to encourage insects
• Plant species such as hawthorn and Ivy which provide thick vegetation for House Sparrows to hide in
• Provide your birds with a home, using either a House Sparrow terrace or a group of nest boxes (with 32mm entrance holes) near the eaves of your house
• If you feed your birds, provide them with a suitable seed mix that includes large grains
• Regularly clean your feeding stations to prevent disease

You can find out more about the Garden BirdWatch on the BTO website.

Quarries throughout the UK are great places for birds of prey, a recent study has shown. Teaming up with the building materials company CEMEX in its national partnership, the RSPB asked quarry managers to complete a survey of the birds of prey they see at their sites.

Although the two most commonly reported species have not changed since the previous survey, Buzzards have overtaken Kestrels to take top spot; both were reported at more than half the sites. Red Kite and Hobby sightings remained fairly constant, being seen hunting at 15% of the quarries, while the occurrence of Sparrowhawks has increased to 46%. There was also good news regarding Barn Owls and Peregrines, populations of which have been under pressure in recent years, with both species recorded at over a third of sites.

All the species observed are fully protected in the UK and experts are excited to have them using these reclaimed habitats. Sam Tarrant, RSPB quarry restoration advisor, said: "Due to their scale, quarry sites offer usually large open spaces with a good range of habitats suitable to these magnificent birds: from rocky ledges, ideal nesting sites for peregrine falcons, to rough tussocky grass, just the sort of habitat for the small mammals hunted by Kestrels and Barn Owls. The sites can also provide a great range of other habitats including woodland, reedbeds, grassland, heathland and ponds. Historically, restored sites have provided many amazing places for wildlife in the UK. The CEMEX/RSPB partnership is a great example of industry and conservation working together to benefit wildlife."

Being one of the largest building materials companies in the UK, and owner of the sites, CEMEX is proud they are giving nature a home on their sites. As part of CEMEX UK's commitment to increasing biodiversity awareness within the company, a poster has been provided to all our quarry sites to highlight the importance of quarries to birds of prey.

Andy Barber, a CEMEX quarry manager, says: "I have been working for [the company] for the past 20 years. I love to see the different species that visit the quarry. Over the years we have thought about our method of working and restored areas to accommodate some species, particularly Sand Martins and Little Ringed Plovers. I have seen a large and welcome increase in the Buzzard and summer visitors include Hobby which often hunt the Sand Martins. We also had a visit from two Red Kites this year which was exciting."

To find out more about wildlife on quarry sites and the RSPB's partnership with CEMEX UK visit the RSPB/CEMEX web pages.

Following a near miss at its international airport, Marseille authorities gave the go-ahead to destroy a flock of Little Bustards.

On 25 June, the prefect of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) region, authorized the shooting of up to 50 Little Bustards at Marseille Provence Airport because of the risk to aviation safety. This decision followed the narrow avoidance of what was considered a potentially serious accident on May 31 involving an Airbus A320. A large flock of the bustards was then present on the site.

Little Bustard is listed as Near Threatened by BirdLife International due to a decline in its global population, resulting from the loss of natural dry grassland and traditional low-intensity cultivation in favour of intensive arable farming. The large, open grassy spaces of airports are consequently potentially attractive to bustards, and Marseilles Provence Airport is already known as a productive site for them.

In response to this decision, the LPO (BirdLife partner in France) sent a letter to the state representative to find a quick solution to the potential bird-strike problem, without destroying any more individuals of a declining bird that is the subject of a conservation National Action Plan in France. The LPO consider the destruction of the birds to have been illegal, as the species is protected under French and EU law.

The LPO also organised a meeting on 27 June to discuss the framework of the Little Bustard National Action Plan, bringing together governmental bodies and regional coordinators for PACA and the adjacent Languedoc-Roussillon region. At this meeting, LPO proposed a short- and medium-term action plan to prevent radical solutions like the shooting of the birds from happening again.

Allain Bougrain Dubourg, President of LPO, met the Secretary General of the Prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône, who ensured the immediate suspension of the shooting. Thirty-eight bustards were, however, already killed in those few days, even though they were in the process of breeding. Following another meeting on Tuesday, 2 July 2013, the Secretary General confirmed the repeal of the decree.

LPO has stated that it applauds this decision, but will remain vigilant on the status of Little Bustards at southern French airports. In the meantime, it will lead a working group under the NAP, in conjunction with all parties concerned to prevention risk to aviation safety.

On Monday 8th July, Colin Burne, of Winters Park, Penrith, pleaded guilty to the intentional killing of Buzzards on land managed by a private shooting syndicate in Whinfell Forest, near Penrith (Cumbria). The 64-year-old gamekeeper attended Carlisle Magistrates Court, where he pleaded guilty to three charges. These related to the killing of two Buzzards on 11th February 2013, killing five Buzzards before this date and possession of a wooden stick as an item capable of being used to kill the birds. He received a 70-day jail sentence, concurrent on each charge, suspended for 12 months. In sentencing, the judge stated that had it not been for his ill health he would have considered jailing him.

On Monday 11th February 2013, a cage trap containing live Buzzards was found by members of the public on land managed by the shoot. Cage traps can lawfully be used to control certain crow species, but any non-target species that become accidentally caught, such as Buzzards and other birds of prey, must be released unharmed. The next day RSPB Investigations Officers set up a covert camera near the trap site. When the footage was retrieved it showed Colin Burne entering the trap and intentionally killing two buzzards by beating them to death with a wooden stick.

Bob Elliot, Head of RSPB Investigations, said: "After we retrieved the footage and played it back, we were surprised at the openness with which Burne had killed the birds. Buzzards were given full legal protection in 1954 — six years after Burne was born — but he calmly dispatched the birds as though it was a routine operation, rather than an illegal act killing a protected species."

A search of the trap site by officers from Cumbria Constabulary and the RSPB revealed the presence of the remains of many other Buzzards, showing that the killing of these birds at this site had become a regular practice. Burne admitted to the killing of five of these birds. Mr Elliot added, "Buzzards are magnificent birds and their presence in the countryside brings pleasure to many people. This case confirms the urgent need to tighten up the use of crow cage traps to ensure that protected species, such as Buzzards, are not routinely killed."

PC Helen Felton, who led the investigation for Cumbria Constabulary, commented: "This was a despicable crime in which someone who was in a position of trust as a gamekeeper trapped Buzzards and then later came back to kill them. From what was found nearby, it was clear that this practice had been taking place for some time. The sentence that has been given today highlights how wildlife crime is not tolerated in Cumbria. Those people who believe they can kill protected species will be brought to justice."

BirdGuides is dedicated to supporting the RSPB investigations team, and one of our news team played a small but important role in the Cumbrian case, putting the member of the public directly in touch with the RSPB. We're pleased to be able to play a part in reducing the persecution of our native birds and strongly recommend noting the RSPB investigations team contact details. To report a case of persecution, you can email [email protected].

Despite a public outcry about the proposed culling of Common Buzzards, Natural England has secretly enabled a shooting estate to destroy their eggs this spring.

Last year, an unscientific and unpopular attempt by DEFRA to allow Common Buzzard to be culled by destroying the species' eggs and nests at taxpayers' expense was thwarted by a public outcry partly led by Birdwatch. However, it has been revealed, via a Freedom of Information Request by the RSPB, that the National Gamekeepers Organisation approached Natural England (NE) for a licence to carry out such egg destruction on an unnamed Pheasant shooting estate, and that this has covertly gone ahead.

NE granted the licence but kept the application and permission secret, and the egg and nest destruction was apparently performed earlier this spring. It appears that NE gave in under threat of a judicial review and quietly granted the licences, a move unprecedented since raptor protection was introduced in law some decades ago. The legality of the licensing is currently in question and certainly not in the spirit of the law, but a DEFRA spokesperson claimed, in support of NE, that: "after a thorough assessment, Natural England granted a licence for the removal of a small number of buzzard nests. Buzzard populations are thriving in the UK and this licensed action had no effect on their population."

The RSPB, which has been attempting to work in a collaborative way with all parties concerned after promises by wildlife minister Richard Benyon that there would be "new proposals", is understandably peeved and will be looking into legal methods of redress. As no more than 2 per cent of Pheasant poults are lost to birds of prey (compared to the roughly 30 per cent killed by road traffic), a cull of buzzards would seem pointless and even belligerent.

NE themselves have admitted that investigations into non-lethal methods of keeping buzzards away from Pheasants have been "employed inconsistently", and that the efficacy of egg and nest destruction was also untested.

With this new development, and the inability of NE to prevent the ecologically destructive burning of peat on grouse moors recently, the growing public perception of the government as acting in favour of shooting estates and being environmentally unsound can only be further increased.

And an even worse, long-term case has been exposed.

Lesser Black-backed Gull is an Amber-listed species of conservation concern, of which 40 per cent of its world population breeds in Britain – in fact, Larus fuscus graellsii is a near-endemic subspecies of Lesser Black-backed gull found mostly in the British Isles and the adjacent continental seaboard. A rapid decline in numbers in recent years has led to the RSPB and other conservation organisations under the umbrella of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee  to consider its population in the Forest of Bowland – which comprises 10 per cent of the total – to be worthy of protection as the colonies there are of international importance.

A Freedom of Information request by The Guardian newspaper has revealed that one particular shooting estate has not been toeing the line, with NE's full knowledge.  Despite the species' well-known status among conservationists, NE has been allowing an annual cull of Lesser Black-backed Gull on the 23,500-acre Abbeystead Estate in the Lancashire fells, which has killed up to 10,000 birds per year by poisoning, cannon-netting, gas gun, falconry and straightforward shooting. 

Though initially and apparently legally allowed since the 1970s for the purposes of maintaining a clean water supply, the cull has continued right up to the present day, despite the change in the gull species' conservation fortunes and the last licence being issued in 1999. A former Abbeystead gull surveyor has said in The Guardian that the culling takes place to protect the "economy of the shooting estates" – of which Abbeystead is one – as it has been known to eat the eggs of Red Grouse.

The gullery at Bowland Fells has held up to 18,080 nests at its peak, but numbers have fallen rapidly, being down to around 1,000 at Abbeystead itself. NE claim that despite the gull being declared endangered and Bowland  being named as a Special Protection Area (SPA), the SPA document for Bowland has not been updated and that is why the cull had been allowed to continue. The area already has a bad reputation for thepersecution of Hen Harriers and other birds of prey.  

Clearly NE, which claims its "purpose is to protect and improve England’s natural environment and encourage people to enjoy and get involved in their surroundings", does not mind appearing as the stooge of landed shooting interests. The British people must be wondering what other skeletons are hanging in the public body's closet. 

The Yellowhammer remains a widespread farmland bird in the UK but its numbers have declined sharply since the 1980s, to the extent that it is now red-listed as a Bird of Conservation Concern. Thus, it is no surprise that the species is the focus of conservation attention such as that through Northern Ireland's Yellowhammer Recovery Project. However, Yellowhammers are not only of interest for conservationists. By the early 20th century ornithologists had noticed that these birds, like a number of familiar British birds, have dialects. If you listen to their song carefully, you will notice that they do not sound identical in different regions. This is particularly noticeable in Central Europe but even within the UK there is substantial variation in Yellowhammers' songs: this did not escape attention of the prominent British evolutionary biologist, Sir Julian S. Huxley, in the 1940s.

Studies of bird dialects may contribute to research of the cultural evolution of vocal communication but also inform other area of ecological research such as invasion and landscape ecology. However, such research often requires a large amount of data from vast geographic areas, which can be too costly and time-consuming to obtain. That's where involvement of public in research through citizen science projects may be particularly helpful, especially if the target species is as easy to recognize and record as the Yellowhammer.

Yellowhammer males are relentless singers; they sing from sunrise to sunset throughout the spring and summer. Their song is simple and an experienced listener can distinguish basic dialects, differing in the final part of the song, even by ear (see below). So far over 10 basic dialects, often distributed in a mosaic fashion, have been identified in Europe but detailed knowledge is available from a few regions only: Denmark, part of Germany, and the Czech Republic. In 2011 the Czech Ornithological Society promoted the Yellowhammer as their "Bird of the Year", and launched a citizen science project "Dialects of Czech Yellowhammers" that became a great success. With increased knowledge on dialect distribution in local to regional scales, many interesting questions have arisen: which factors ensure the long-term maintenance of dialects? Do the boundaries between neighbouring dialects follow habitat boundaries, or are social interactions more important? How do dialects evolve in newly established areas? To answer the last question, the Yellowhammer Dialects Project, to which you may contribute, has been launched.

While the British Yellowhammer populations are struggling, there is another region in the world where the birds of British origin thrive: they were introduced to New Zealand in the late 19th century, and rapidly spread across the country to become a serious agricultural pest a century ago. This "natural experiment" provides an opportunity to study the evolution of Yellowhammer dialects during colonisation, and comparing distributions of dialects in the donor (UK) and colonised (NZ) country may allow reconstructing the spread of bird "cultures" across a new territory. However, such research cannot succeed without the help of volunteers from both countries, and both the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand and the RSPB are encouraging observers to take part in this novel and exciting project. Hopefully, the involvement of British birdwatchers may not only contribute to research but also get Yellowhammers the attention they deserve.

How to help?If you would like to get involved in recording Yellowhammer songs for the project, you don't need any sophisticated equipment or specialised knowledge. Actually, many modern mobile phones, digital cameras or voice recorders can record in a sufficient quality to allow dialect identification. Just follow simple instructions at the project's website, get into the field, record your local male Yellowhammer... and spread the word about the project!