Feeling pity for the bird! Moscow landscaping has new victims

Lyubov YAKUBOVSKAYA, employee of the Wildlife Conservation Center

For me, this story began with the loss of a green oasis inside one of the Tsaritsyno quarters, which was completely cut down "to zero" for the sake of building a house under the renovation program. Previously, there were magnificent blue spruces in that place, maples, ash trees, rowan trees, and various shrubs grew thickly. Reading reports in the media that the grosbeak bird left the main list of the Moscow Red Book and migrated to the supervisory list, before the start of the renovation, I could confirm from personal observations that the grosbeak had adapted to life in a big city. I have repeatedly met him on that very, now destroyed green island.

Mourning the fate of the blue firs, I vaguely hoped that the grosbeak bird would find shelter in the nearby Sosenki Park. And so it happened. Back in 2011, as part of the volunteer monitoring organized by the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, no grosbeak was observed in the park. But the other day, "Sosenki" was visited by an ornithologist, senior researcher at the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University Pavel Kvartalnov, he noted the singing of a male grosbeak characteristic of the mating season, which indicates that there is a female somewhere nearby.

The drama lies in the fact that a pair of grosbeaks chose one of the trees in the eastern part of the park, where, in violation of all the rules, landscaping work began in the brood-nesting period. From day to day, heavy machinery will begin to crush old paths, demolish a dilapidated fence, dig ditches for sports facilities. Each sharp unexpected sound can scare a bird incubating eggs, just such moments are watched by crows and squirrels, which immediately rush to the defenseless clutch and destroy it.

So, fleeing from renovation, the grosbeak got into trouble already in the Sosenki park. This is all the more annoying that the park has a conservation status, that is, its purpose is precisely to be an island of protection for rare and vulnerable species. With the status of a SPNA in Sosenki, an almost detective story came out. The park was included in the list of projected SPNAs back in 2004, but under a different name - the Nature Monument “Old pine forest in the park along Baku Street”. According to the relevant legislative acts, all design work in the park must be carried out taking into account the environmental status of the territory. But in the tender for the landscaping, the park is simply named "Pines", and none of the local authorities was embarrassed by this discrepancy. A local deputy is proud to say that the construction of sports facilities will additionally attract thousands of people to the park.

Instead of carefully preserving a small island of nature among the vast renovation quarters, where all the greenery will be totally destroyed, where elderly residents and mothers with strollers could relax in relative peace among the singing of birds, the city authorities order a project that will finally kill nature here. will destroy the Red Data Book species.

In addition to the aforementioned grosbeak, this year the spruce bough was also under threat in Sosenki, and this bird is not only listed in the Red Book of Moscow, but also belongs to category 2 - this is a rare species. This is how this category is characterized: rare or small species with a declining or declining number - species whose number and distribution have decreased so much that with the further manifestation of negative factors affecting them in a city environment, they may become endangered in a short period of time throughout Moscow.

The ornithologist Kvartalnov, who observed the singing of the male spruce-tree bough, notes that this bird nests very early and with a high degree of probability the female is already sitting on eggs in the nest just in the territory set aside for improvement, it is there that the right conditions are right. The scientist focuses on the fact that the bough is a bird that is sensitive to human anxiety. It is all the more surprising that he took a fancy to the rather visited city park. It is important to preserve conditions for further nesting for this species from the Red Data Book, and they are incompatible with construction work.

But most of all, the improvement of the park annoyed the chiffchaff. Tenkovka is included in the list of birds in need of monitoring on the territory of Moscow, this is an appendix to the Red Book. This birdie builds nests on the ground or low above the ground, therefore it is especially vulnerable to the state of the ground layer. Pavel Kvartalnov gives the following explanation: “At present, the distribution of plots for chiffchaffs is just beginning. For successful nesting in the park, these birds need fencing of lawns, a ban on mowing grass from May to July, and the preservation of shrubs. At present, taking into account the ongoing work, chiffchaffs in the Sosenki Park are deprived of places suitable for nesting. " The work that has practically begun in the park is a verdict for the chiffchaff, not today tomorrow, it will be on the list of rare and endangered species precisely because of the thoughtless, total digging of Moscow land under the guise of landscaping.

The authorities hide behind concern for the population, they say, it is necessary to develop sports - they are going to establish a skate park, a pump park and a BMX park in a natural area. A confrontation between sports lovers and nature lovers is artificially created. But no one asked the residents of the district for their opinion, no one was interested in the opinion of the youth, for whom the authorities allegedly try. One evening in April, I talked with several groups of young townspeople, first asking if they liked the idea of building a park. Someone said that I like it, someone said that it "sucks". Then I turned to someone who liked the idea of a skate park, so if he personally decided whether to leave nature in the Sosenki Park or build a skate park, how would he order? Each of these young people, without a moment's hesitation, replied that they would leave nature.

The most annoying thing in this story is that directly opposite the natural park, across the road, there is a piece of land for which the construction of a sports facility or an object of physical culture is listed in the list of possible directions of its use in the cadastral map. Why not use it to build "pokatushki"?

The city dwellers are presented with the renovation program as a blessing, as an improvement in the quality of life, but the quality of life of a person, at least one who is not under house arrest, is not limited by four walls. Improving the quality of life is a complex of measures; a Muscovite should be able not only to live in a modern home, but also to relax comfortably. Listening to birdsong is one of the ways to effectively relax and get rid of city stress. But by erecting millions of cubic meters of housing, the city actually destroys living life around them.

Now the victims of unrestrained improvement run the risk of becoming a bunch, grosbeak and chiffchaff from Tsaritsyno. The Red Data Book species is only a marker of the state of conditions for a normal life, an alarm bell. If we do not hear him and save these birds, tomorrow to the question "for whom is the bell ringing?" it will be necessary to answer: for us, Muscovites.