Thank you for your comments John.
One of my great pleasures in life is watching how things interact with each other. "Why do I find these things together?" and "Why are things common here and not there?" are the sort of questions that are always bumping around in my mind. I think urban spots like Queens Park are a great place to see how (the rest of) nature, in particular birds, interacts with 'us humans'.
Jack

Good luck for the project, Jack. I don't live in Stalybridge and recently began to start submitting records to the county recorder simply because I felt that people should be interested in and fascinated by birdwatching and nature, especially in a county which is what, 90 per cent urban like Greater Manchester. I think that humans have been overran by the 'not-so-simple' 'pleasures' cats on Youtube, obviously not largely, but it's rare to find someone in my age bracket (under 30) that actually cares about nature and biodiversity, actively seeks to interact with it as I do being a birder etc I think that to get out and about and enjoy nature is a way of escaping what is now post-modern life.

I went to my local patch today, Queens Park, Collyhurst - and marveled at the way nature could function so carefree in an urban environment - OK, not white-knuckle birding, but still...

-- Edited by John Doherty on Wednesday 19th of February 2014 02:26:25 PM

I am a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and I am hoping to carry out some research into why individuals record and report on natural phenomena. I am interested in how we should account for biodiversity and have recently written a chapter in a book edited by Professor Mike Jones entitled Accounting for Biodiversity. Basically I think nature is under threat from mankinds activities and somehow humans have become detached from nature. I also think the only way to protect nature is to reawaken our links with her and I am proposing that one way is via a public account. By account I mean an ongoing, interactive display or presentation of the local ecology in every community, further I think the best way to start with building this idea is via local recorders, reporters, writers and artists. I hope to gain insights into why people record and report and also ask them whether they would they contribute to a public account in their community.
To this end I hope to contact and interview a number of recorders in the Stalybridge and Mossley area to see how they would feel about contributing to such an account. I intend to send messages via this website and I hope the recipients will not feel this is intrusive. Please accept my apologies in advance should you feel this way, I can only hope you realise my intentions are in the best possible cause, the protection of wildlife and birds in particular.
On a more personal note whilst I have been an accountant for over thirty years I have been interested in natural history for over fifty years. I am 60 years old and am sad at the way we are losing so much of our biodiversity. There were tree sparrows in Dukinfield when I first became interested in nature (1961ish). And where are the Golden Plovers and Ring Ousels I used to see on the moors above Carrbrook (1977)? That said I remember my first sightings of Canada Goose and Stonechat at Dovestones that same year.