IT is ironic that I can't afford to move into a select home overlooking beautiful Poole Harbour... but spoonbills can.

Twenty-six are swanning around on Brownsea Island and who can blame them? I have nothing against the spoonbills moving into, arguably, the poshest neighbourhood in town. They look very distinguished, peering snootily down their huge beaks at the rest of us.

In fact, it is an honour to have such high-flying wild creatures close to our doorsteps.

I don't begrudge any creature a home... which is why I sympathise with the need to build flats and houses. There is something cock-eyed in a society that forces its young people to take flight from their home territory. Too many young people are forced to fly elsewhere because of the high price of housing.

But, equally, I don't like to see so many villas demolished, nor too much high-density development. Most families, after all, favour homes with gardens.

What's the option? One alternative would be to slap a tax on second homes. That deterrent might help keep prices down and give young people, praying to be able to afford to buy their first nest, a chance.

The flip side of "Flatsville-on-Sea" is that we are also losing a worrying amount of garden space to development and that must be a major threat to our wildlife.

Suburban fauna are being forced to up sticks in a fight for survival because we are building on so many of the gardens that they share with us.

Creatures are losing their traditional habitat thanks, yet again, to us.

Many of our garden birds are at risk of declining in number, forced out by so much intense development.

Ironically, many of the flats going up instead are about the size of bird boxes. And cuckoo clocks.