Letter of the Day – Lockdown is a chance to appreciate birds

With time on our hands, confined indoors and with spring in the air, there could not be a better opportunity or time for observing nature around us, and in particular the glorious sound and sight of our beloved songbirds.

Listen for the melodious song of the blackbird

At this time of year they really excel, with dazzling courtship displays, effervescent singing and much activity during the construction of their nests. Anybody, whether living in the middle of a city or an apartment several floors up, has an opportunity to witness the joy and therapeutic pleasure which songbirds can bring through sight and sound.

In the spring, when these birds require all their energy to produce the next generation of songbirds, feeding them could not be more important. There are so many different types of feeders available that anybody can provide supplementary feed, whether it is through a feeder stuck to the outside of a window, putting feed onto a window box or simply hanging it in a specialist feed container. The rewards of doing this at relatively little cost are enormous, as well as hugely beneficial for birds’ 
welfare.

This is a time to refocus on nature when previously we have taken it so much for granted or just not realised what was around us. We have the time to appreciate it in all its glory and nothing more so than in the birds which surround us. Their brief lives continue regardless of season or disease, and for them the main focus is on survival and bringing into the world the generation which will follow them.

No bird more than a blackbird personifies the arrival of spring, with the male performing its melodious song from a treetop or roof, while their nests are amongst the first to be constructed .

Birds give us so much pleasure and interest that we must never take them for granted, especially as so many of them now face an uphill struggle for survival, but we must cherish and protect them and be forever grateful for the profoundly beneficial effect they have on our lives.

Colin Strang Steel

Trustee, SongBird Survival

Threepwood, Galashiels

Let young work

Although the suggestion that under-15s may not be “either seriously affected by the [corona] virus or perhaps don’t get it at all” may be contradicted by the very sad death of a 13-year-old in England, I think that there is a very important point that the UK government and, by extension the SNP, should take on board.

At present, while the government is allowing construction projects to be continued in England, the same is not the case in Scotland. On the other hand, there are very worrying signs as “hundreds of thousands of firms are reported to be on the verge of collapse because they can’t get emergency loans”, according to the BBC.

Perhaps the time has come for a more sensible approach, now that we can get a feel for the realities of the present situation? Those who are most at risk are those whose health is compromised and who would be told to self-quarantine in many cases anyway. Others are the 70-plus age group.

Would it not be sensible for the majority of people under 50, say, to return to work and for businesses to reopen? There will be some deaths, without doubt, but probably not very many; possibly only as many as die annually from flu.

That way, the economy will not collapse with concomitant loss of lives due to suicides, family break-ups due to debt and an economy heading towards the possible outcome that followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash: another world war.

Those of us who are more at risk should continue with self-isolation. There must be much more testing to let us know who has had it and then to let them move freely and do business. A deep recession would be even worse than the predicted death toll.

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh

Viral facts

Whatever kind of doctor John Cameron is (Letters, 1 April), he knows very little about medicine. Antibiotics have no effect whatsoever against a virus like Covid-19 – they are used to kill bacteria and the fever is caused by the virus.

Nor will they help with the pneumonia seen in the more severe cases – it is an interstitial pneumonia caused by the invasion of the lung tissue by an excess of white blood cells. Not only is the letter factually wrong, it is dangerously misleading – we are constantly being told that everyone has to decrease their use of antibiotics where they are inappropriate.

Barry Hughes

Comiston Drive, Edinburgh

Childcare cheek

This week First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that the SNP flagship policy of providing 1,140 hours of childcare for every three and four-year old child to get a generation of mothers back to work was delayed “because of Covid-19”. Previously the project was to be up and running by August 2020.

Who is she trying to mislead? First: everyone knows that separation and independence is the SNP’s flagship policy – how many flagships does she want to have?

Second: It’s only a few weeks since The Scotsman reported (3 March) that the Auditor General for Scotland had said the scheme was unlikely to be implemented on time because they were around 4,000 staff short and fewer than one third of the necessary premises were ready.

Yet £2 billion has been spent. I see another SNP project delivered “on time and on budget” – just not the original timescale and not the original budget.

Alasdair Seale

Cluny Avenue, Edinburgh

Cost of freedom

Fraser Grant has an erratic approach to his subject (Letters, 1 April). He thinks the world of “other small nations in northern Europe” without examining the reasons why they are able to expend large amounts of money on their social structure.

Put simply, it comes down to (very) high taxes, certainly in the case of the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Norway.

He cites SNP support and support for independence and says that “independence is the normal state of affairs for countries”.

Why, then, is he making a weird comparison of Scotland with Canada? Canada’s relationship with the US is much the same as ours in the UK will be with the EU, but Mr Grant clearly does not recognise that we Scots have already made it abundantly clear in the referendum in 2014, by a majority of almost a quarter, that we wish to remain British and not to be independent.

Was he away on holiday in September 2014?

Just as the Canadians would not wish to be ruled by Donald Trump in Washington, we do not wish to be ruled by the far-away bureaucrats in Brussels. We will be independent and not forced to have our referendum again, as the Danes and the Irish had to when they voted “the wrong way” about Europe. Sometimes, freedom comes at a cost.

Peter Hopkins

Morningside Road, Edinburgh

Waste of money

Surely in this time of national crisis, with even football and rugby stars taking whopping cuts in their salaries, the next obvious place to look for saving money and diverting hundreds of millions to the NHS, is Holyrood.

MSPs are semi-suspended anyway. One of the SNP’s top ministers, earning a movie star salary, has disappeared from the scene entirely for several months and yet is apparently still being paid. Money appears to be growing on trees.

Scotland survived and prospered for more two centuries without Holyrood. It could even be argued that its existence has merely caused more division and rancour in our country and opened the Pandora’s Box of nationalism.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh

Must try harder

Please note the word “deferment” in the SRU announcement as their contribution to the current Covid-19 crisis. It is not a salary cut or waver, it is a deferment of five months’ salary to be repaid to them, one imagines, in full in their September salary cheques – so they have contributed absolutely nothing .

One could not expect anything more from an organisation led by Mark Dodson who, on an obscene reported salary of £933,000pa, must rank as one of the most greedy heads of a national sporting organisation. Three fellow board members also annually pocket a reported £1,178,000 between them.

This is nothing more than absolute disgrace and a slap the face for loyal rugby supporters .

The root and branch rugby clubs have totally lost control of this organisation, which should now be renamed Dodson Rugby Union.

Robin Jack

Craigcrook Road, Edinburgh

Banks blockage

News yesterday morning is that banks are refusing to advance government money allocated for business rescue, unless their customers have exhausted all other conventional means of borrowing, such as the pledging of property as security. This defeats the entire purpose of the government’s excellent rescue scheme.

As with the £375 billion of Quantitative Easing issued by government via the banks in previous years – equal to £6,000 per head of the UK population – this latest government aid looks set to quietly vanish.

The Bank of England has asked banks to suspend payment of dividends, which they will no doubt be glad to do, and to cease the payment of bonuses, which they will probably not do if past experience is anything to go by.

The role of a private banking system, that milks society when tasked with helping it, must surely be called into question when this virus crisis is over.

Malcolm Parkin

Gamekeepers Road
Kinnesswood, Kinross

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