Why is the Robin’s breast red? Why are any of the parts of any birds colorful? To make it easier for birders to identify them, of course!
But seriously, Science has a more interesting set of answers, and some recently published research on European Robins helps to examine this question in some detail.
The hen harrier is the bird most likely to become extinct in England because of human pressure. Only four pairs bred this year - the lowest population since the 1960s, when they made a comeback after being exterminated. A report says that England could support 320 pairs!
This may be a long shot, I don't know. Is there anyone out there who is conversant with Yabb bulletin board software? We have a large amount of data that we want to retrieve from our old forum, which died a death some years ago...