The latest State of Nature report, released last month, did little to gladden the heart. It suggests that since the 1970s there has been a 13% decrease in average abundance across the wildlife groups studied in the UK and that the declines continue unabated. The stats are relentless (see p. 634). The latest report on scarce migrant birds (pp. 639–660) also shows a general pattern of ups and downs against a greater backcloth of dwindling populations.