Bye Bye Birdies

The Telegraph has published an interesting report about the impact of the American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) on songbirds in Britain. A recent study indicated that songbird populations are declining in part due to nest predation in areas with dense populations of grey squirrels. This may be interesting twist to the story, since for decades, dwindling songbird numbers in Britain were attributed to habitat loss and pollution. It's too bad the report doesn't seem to be available online, since the article is a little fuzzy about the details (such as whether the predation was directly attributed to grey squirrels, or whether there was just a correlation between squirrel density and nest predation!).