The curtains opened on a grey November morning in Osney, and a sight that did nothing to lift the gloom. Framed in the window, on the opposite side of the road, was a handsome sparrowhawk, its fearsome talons holding down a blackbird that fluttered and flapped in a bid to escape the clasp. Of course, it did not. The struggle lasted a minute or more, after which the predador launched itself skyward, bearing away its prey whose wings still stirred, for the last time. One more bird — a regular visitor to our garden — no longer there to delight us with its evening song.

As it happened, I had been reading a day or so earlier a hard-hitting article by naturalist Robin Page in which he expressed sadness and anger over the carnage in our gardens and streets. Writing in the Daily Telegraph’s Country Diary he said: “According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s Garden Bird Survey, over the past 40 years garden blue tits have decreased by 42 per cent, house sparrows by 70 per cent and song thrushes by 75 per cent.

“The truth is that at a time when much of our wildlife is disappearing, so the predators of garden birds, farmland birds — and even hedgehogs — are increasing. The numbers of foxes, badgers, mink, grey squirrels, crows, magpies, ravens, buzzards, sparrowhawks and herons are on the up, and not forgetting in excess of nine million domestic cats.”

Between 1970 and 2007, sparrowhawk population in Britain rose by 99 per cent, magpies by 96 per cent and buzzards by an astonishing 545 per cent. Mr Page said: “We must cull the killing machines now if we are to preserve the balance of nature in this country.”

I suspect that he is right.