I FIND it very hard to envisage Ian Hawkridge’s “dense swirling vortex of terrified screaming birds of every kind” (Letters, 11 September) because of the Air Festival.

Having seen real swirling vortexes of bats at dusk in Sri Lanka, and similar flocks of starlings in England – both without any human cause – just what would so many birds live on by the shoreline cliffs, and where would they all nest?

How were those ‘screaming birds’ audible above the noise of the aircraft?

As for a three days a year air festival being damaging to ‘the environment’, the biggest real harm is from the square miles of farmland being concreted over to build more and more houses, from unending net population increases. As I have previously said, enjoyment is now a bad word, especially when people are enjoying things others do not like.

Eric Hayman

Bradpole Road,

Bournemouth