Counting crows: the British birdmen bent on tackling property developers

Oxfordshire twitchers do their own ecological surveys over concerns of collapsing bird populationsWhen developers came calling in Oxfordshire with plans to build homes, the locals found the most useful weapons to fight the proposal were not picket lines and bullhorns, but binoculars and cameras.“I’ve photographed birds for a long time in this area,” says Roger Smith, 71, a retired garden photographer and avid birdwatcher. Surveyors claimed there were just five species of bird a