I READ with much interest Mrs Julia Ashworth's distressing story (Nature Watch letter, April 28) of a sparrowhawk attacking her garden bird. I wrote to the Evening Telegraph some three years ago pointing out the concern of racing pigeon fanciers regarding the large increase in the predator population.

The concern has now gone far beyond pigeon fanciers. Every day people are now seeing their garden birds being devoured by hawks - not a pleasant sight, I assure you!

I first started racing pigeons some 47 years ago. In those days, we never had any problems with sparrowhawks, but during the last ten years our losses have become unbelievable. Almost every one of the 80,000 racing lofts in the UK are having hawk strikes on a regular basis. We even have bird-watchers crying out for us to do something about this increase. One bird-watcher said: "There will be nothing left for us to watch in a year or two if nothing is done."

Such is the concern of some 'twitchers,' that a 'Song Bird Protection Association' has recently been formed to look into the diminishing numbers of songbirds. At the top of their list is the predator problem!

Ron Freethy told Julia that she should think of the sparrowhawk "as a beautiful bird to be seen and enjoyed." Of course, that is if she likes seeing a small bird being torn apart while it's still living. Somehow I doubt very much if Julia is the sort of person who will get much fun from that spectacle!

BRIAN TATTERSALL, (Vice-president, Royal Pigeon Racing Association), Haslingden Old Road, Oswaldtwistle.

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