Dog walkers are being urged to keep their animals on the short lead whilst walking through local woods during bird nesting season.
The Parks Trust, which cares for over 6,000 acres of local parkland, says that the city's woodland birds are under "enormous pressure".
In the last 40 years, approximately half of nesting birds in local woodlands have been lost, in line with the national trend.
It is said that habitat fragmentation and a crash in the insect population are largely to blame. "For this reason, we need to do all we can to help out birdlife at this critical time of year," says The Parks Trust.
This is why dog walkers are asked to keep all dogs on leads in Howe Park, Shenley, and Linford Wood from March to September.
These woodlands are owned by The Parks Trust, but dog walkers are encouraged to follow the same behaviour in other woods too.
A number of common songbirds including chiffchaff, robin and blackbird, nest very close to the ground, often in brambles in the understorey woodland. And for some of the spring/summer migrants, particularly warblers like the blackcap and willow warbler, disturbance to the nest can be the difference between success and failure.
Martin Kincaid, The Parks Trust’s Biodiversity Officer, said: "We would ask all dog owners to kindly do their bit to help our woodland birds. Please keep dogs on a short lead when in the woodlands – we are happy for people to exercise dogs off the lead outside the woodlands themselves.
"Some of our birds like willow warbler have all but vanished from Milton Keynes’ woods and we want future generations to be able to hear its beautiful song”.
Besides the disturbance to nesting birds, dogs can also affect freshwater species by entering ponds to bathe. Frogs and newts breed in ponds between February and June and the cleaner and less disturbed the ponds remain, the more successful their breeding season. It is important that dogs do not enter ponds and ditches which harbour a great diversity of wildlife in spring.
A spokesperson for The Parks Trust added: "So please be aware that if you are walking you dog in Milton Keynes' woodlands, you may be spoken to by one of our Community Rangers and reminded to comply with our Dogs on Leads policy throughout the bird nesting season."
