The Independent reports that a dearth of worms is blamed for dramatic decline in the UK song thrush population. Britain’s first farmland worm survey reveals nearly half of English fields lack key types of earthworm and may help explain a 50 per cent fall in song thrush numbers.

The citizen science project, in which farmers dug for worms in their own fields, has prompted 57 per cent of them to pledge to change their soil management practices – a move that may benefit the song thrush, for whom worms are a vital food source.

Photo by Tony Sutton under Creative commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode