Sir – If Christopher Gray is to venture into matters ecological (Gray Matter, November 24), rather than sticking to his comfort zone as trainspotter, gourmand and solipsist, can I suggest that he carries out some research and gives the matter some thought, rather than merely regurgitating the ill-informed prejudices of “naturalist” Robin Page.

Sparrowhawk numbers have increased by 84 per cent since 1970 (not 99 per cent) but that less than doubling of numbers represents a partial recovery from an extremely low population level caused by human persecution and pesticides. The significant and ongoing declines in farmland birds are not due to predation, but to the dramatic changes wrought by humans on our countryside over the last 70 years.

To Mr Page, it supports his spurious argument to dub the sparrowhawk “a killing machine”; Christopher Gray’s lamented blackbird is, of course, a predator. Should we preserve the balance of nature by culling songbirds to boost the fortunes of declining invertebrates?

One of Robin Page’s target species for protection from predators, if I understand his tortuous English correctly, is the hedgehog, a species quite partial to eating birds’ eggs. Ecology is complicated and best left to those who know or seek to find out, rather than those who simply opine.

I suspect that the originator and the rehasher of this tosh are wrong.

Nick Forster, Old Headington