I usually awake to a heartily-sung dawn chorus from birds in the garden, but apart from squawking cries from seagulls nesting on a nearby pond, things have been relatively quiet this spring.

There's something about a dawn chorus, the plaintive cry of curlews on the hill, larks singing high in the sky, or watching an owl silently hunt the edge of a wood at dusk, that lifts my spirits. Such simple pleasures are part of the reason I enjoyed farming.

The recent absence of a dawn chorus may be down to the colder weather, or the sad fact that several species of once-common birds have been quietly disappearing from the scene. Even wee sparrows, or spuggies as I call them, have more than halved in numbers.

Population declines of certain species may be down to an increase in predators like birds of prey and cats, or climate changes, pollution, disease, or changing farming practices. More than likely it's a combination of all these factors.

My favourite birds are lapwings, or peewits as I call them, that get their nickname from their distinctive "pee-wee" call. Plucky peewits are fearless wee, ground-nesting birds that defend their eggs or chicks against all odds.

Many are the times I have watched my inquisitive collies being chased away by peewits swooping low. Other times, they pretend to have a broken wing and lead their foe away from their young.

At one time there would be at least 50 pairs breeding successfully on the upland farm I used to rent, but their numbers declined in the 1990s until there were only a few left.

I blamed their decline on the build-up in the number of carrion crow, or corbies as I call them. Those corbies systematically searched the fields for peewit eggs to eat and rarely missed a nest. Corbies and their cousins magpies and jays eat a lot of eggs and need to be culled by trapping.

Some reckon the increase in birds of prey like buzzards, sparrow hawks and kites has helped kill off small birds, but others believe that changing farming practices may have had a bigger effect.

Many farmers now recognise the vital role they can play in conservation, and have successfully helped to reverse the decline of several threatened species.

Farmers respond well to appropriately pitched financial incentives and schemes like the ESA (Environmentally Sensitive Areas) and its successor the SRDP (Scottish Rural Development Programme) have triggered a rash of environmental enhancement projects like fencing off water margins, wetlands and ponds as well as tree planting and a massive hedge planting programme.

Others leave wide, uncultivated margins round the outside of their fields to create nesting cover, insect life and seeds for wild birds. Others actually feed birds during the winter, or set up nest boxes, particularly for owls.

Goose management schemes have been so successful in increasing the population of British greylags and Greenland barnacles that there are now subject to controlled culling.

Over the last 20 years or so crofters and farmers in corncrake areas have left grass fields uncut until August when the nesting season is over. They then mow the fields by starting in the middle and mowing outwards in a bid to drive the birds out of harm's way, rather than mowing in the traditional manner from the outside of the field inwards that congregates them in the centre where they would be killed by the machinery.

Foresters now leave a few thinner tree trunks standing when they are felling a plantation, to act as view points for birds of prey to perch on.

Even townsfolk can help by feeding birds from regularly washed and disinfected bird feeders that are sited in such a way as not to allow ravenous cats to ambush them.

Most small birds spend a lot of time lining their nests with warm materials like feathers, dry moss, fur and wool that help to keep their eggs and chicks warm. That's easy enough for country birds as such materials are literally lying everywhere, but spare a thought for their city-dwelling cousins.

Wee birds in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee have to fly a long way to find a piece of wool hanging from a fence. To help overcome that problem, the RSPB used to advise city-dwellers to empty their vacuum cleaners in the garden. That way, city birds could find a supply of dog hair and fluff.

Sometimes little things can make a big difference.