Counting the birds - A path to magnificence

IT may be hard to believe it but there is far more to life than the economic crisis all around us.

One constant is the way we interact with the natural world, how we change the environment the birds and animals that we share the planet with depend on.

Next Monday Birdwatch Ireland begin a nationwide survey which will run over 13 weeks. It aims to do a health check on garden birds, especially in the context of last year’s hard winter which may have devastated some species.

This exercise depends on widespread public support and participation is about far more than counting robins and wrens. It is about making us aware of the world around us that we sometimes, and possibly increasingly, take far too much for granted.

It is a path to the beauty and magnificence all around us, which, if we make ourselves more aware of we can’t but cherish all the more.