A paper in Nature last week showed a strong correlation between neonicotinoid concentrations and the decline of birds such as swallows, skylarks, yellowhammers, wagtails, starlings and whitethroats(1). It couldn’t demonstrate causation, but it was elegantly designed to exclude competing factors. The precipitous loss of insects caused by this pesticide is the simplest and most obvious explanation, as all these birds depend on insects to feed their young. Where the chemical was heavily used, bird populations fell by 3.5% a year; where it was not, they held up. At this rate, it doesn’t take long to engineer a world without song.