This Birding Life (38 page)

A few years ago, I wrote about my all-time favourite birds in this column. Now it's time to come clean and give you the top five birds I could, to put it politely, do without. If my choice upsets you, I apologise, but sometimes you just have to get things off your chest.

At number five on my list, Meadow Pipit. Not that there's anything offensive about this little bird; just that, as the archetypal ‘little brown job', it defines the word ‘nondescript'. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of an odd-looking bird out of the corner of your eye and imagine for a brief moment that it is something rare and interesting. Almost always, it's just another Meadow Pipit.

At number four, Greenfinch. Actually it was a toss-up between this and Herring Gull, but as so many people have a downer on gulls I feel it behoves me to stand up for them. So Greenfinch it is. Maybe it's that annoying wheezy call or the fact that they monopolise bird feeders most of the year round, but I just can't get that excited about them.

At number three, Wood Pigeon. Surely I must mean Feral Pigeon, the famous ‘rats with wings'? In fact Feral Pigeons are amazing birds, with an extraordinary history, having mutated from the wild Rock Dove into the ultimate city slicker we know today. The Feral Pigeon has been scandalously ignored both by professional ornithologists and amateur birders, with the honourable exception of Eric Simms, whose book
The Public Life of the Street Pigeon
taught us most of what we know about them. So instead I have gone for the Feral Pigeon's big brother, the Wood Pigeon. There's just something about these birds that annoys me – I'm sure they do have interesting habits, but they are just too big and gaudy for my liking.

At number two, and jostling for the top spot, is Greylag Goose. The late Konrad Lorenz, who pioneered the study of animal behaviour known as ethology, would doubtless disagree, but this bird is surely the
most aesthetically challenged of all our native birds. It used to make up for this deficiency by living in remote and beautiful parts of Scotland, but in the past couple of decades there has been a boom in the feral Greylag population, and today it can be found all over the place, still looking gormless.

And which species occupies the coveted number one spot in the league table of birds I wouldn't miss if they disappeared tomorrow? I'm afraid it's another goose species, and this time I'm not alone in my choice. Canada Geese may look good as they migrate south from their native home, filling the air with their haunting cries, but their presence on virtually every pond, lake and river in the country is a crime against nature. It's not just that they are foreign – I have often admitted a soft spot for the equally alien Ring-necked Parakeets – but that they simply have no redeeming features, and enough unpleasant habits to fill a book. If only they were good to eat…

Of all the people who have influenced the history of birdwatching, my personal favourite is the eighteenth-century ornithologist George Montagu. He was the first to classify several British species, including the bird that still bears his name – Montagu's Harrier.

Yet for the first forty years of his life Montagu had very little to do with birds. Instead, he pursued a career path typical of men of his class and background: joining the army and reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel, before settling down with his wife and six children in his home county of Wiltshire.

Despite his worldly success, Montagu was a deeply frustrated man. A few years earlier, he had written to his mentor Gilbert White, confessing that he had ‘delighted being an ornithologist from infancy and,
was I not bound by conjugal attachment, I should like to ride my hobby into distant parts …'

In 1799, he got his wish. Having begun an affair with a married woman, he was court-martialled and forced to leave military service. He and Eliza, his mistress, headed down to Kingsbridge in Devon, and spent the rest of their lives watching, cataloguing and writing books about birds. Not a bad result from what nowadays we might call a mid-life crisis.

I thought of George Montagu when, on the way back from a recent birding trip, I called in at a secret site where a pair of Montagu's Harriers was nesting. I say ‘secret', but the birders' grapevine is more efficient than most, and at least a dozen people were waiting for Britain's rarest bird of prey to appear.

Normally, when hoping to see such a special bird, I spend a fruitless hour or two gazing into the distance, before giving up and heading home. ‘You should have been here yesterday' is a sentence I have heard more times than I care to remember.

But not this time. Barely five minutes after I arrived, a shout went up from one of the watchers, and I focused my telescope on a bird on the horizon. It was a male ‘Monty' in all its splendour: almost falcon-like on its long, narrow, pale-blue wings. Slimmer and more elegant than other harriers, a Montagu's shares their ability to cruise low over the ground, with a buoyant and seemingly effortless flight action.

As the male approached the nest the female flew up to meet it. Larger than her mate, she also has a very different plumage: mainly chestnut-brown, with a narrow white rump. The male was carrying food, and sure enough, they flew into the sky and performed the ‘food-passing' ritual that cements their pair-bond – as well as providing the sitting female with much-needed nourishment. Two Marsh Harriers came over to investigate, but were promptly chased away by the male. After checking that there was no other imminent danger, he flew off into the strengthening northerly breeze, a vision of beauty and grace.

2001–PRESENT

T
hings came full circle in August 2001, when Suzanne and I moved to Hampton: the place I went to school, and just a few miles down the road from where I grew up. This time it took me a little longer to find a new local patch, but when I did, it proved to be even more varied and enjoyable than the previous one. In two years I recorded just short of a hundred species and enjoyed some memorable experiences, some of which are documented in this chapter.

I also discovered the joys of truly local birding: our modest suburban garden is in a great position to attract a wide range of visitors and fly-overs, and when a Song Thrush turned up recently we had finally totted up 50 species here. Mind you, when I lived round here in the 1960s and 1970s there was a Song Thrush singing from almost every rooftop — proving that not all change has been for the better. The real
star of our garden avifauna is the controversial Ring-necked Parakeet – and I have to admit that I love them, screeching and all.

The biggest life-change during this period has been the arrival of three children in rapid succession: Charlie in November 2003, and George and Daisy just 15 months later. No wonder my birding has been largely restricted to gazing out of the back window!

Now, as this book goes to press, we are planning our biggest move of all: from suburban London to rural Somerset. We're going to live in that mysterious place – half land, half water – known as the Somerset Moors and Levels. That's ‘moor' in the sense of ‘Moorhen' – meaning mere, or shallow lake. To paraphrase Noel Coward: ‘Very wet, Somerset'.

Although I'll miss this area, I can't help thinking that the richness of the birds and other wildlife down in Somerset will compensate for no longer being woken at dawn by a squadron of parakeets screaming overhead. Over the coming years, I plan to report on the birdlife of my new local patch in the pages of the
Guardian
.

Until then, here is some more familiar fare …

If you asked most birders how their interest first began, they would probably say it was from watching birds in their garden. According to a recent RSPB survey, two out of three people in Britain regularly feed garden birds. Many of them also keep a list of what they see. The rules are simple: any bird which either lives in, visits or flies over your garden can be counted, providing you can see it from somewhere on your property.

So when we moved home in mid-August, we had barely begun to unpack before we started off our new garden list: with a Collared Dove
perched on the roof. After six weeks or so, the total stands at 34 species: pretty good for a small suburban garden on the outskirts of west London.

Our new home is in Hampton, very close to the River Thames. The proximity of the river, together with some small reservoirs, makes the local birdlife much more exciting. Every evening hundreds of Black-headed Gulls stream overhead on their way to roost, along with smaller numbers of the larger gulls and a few Cormorants.

Being on a flight-line, as this is known, brings all sorts of surprises. On our first evening, as we sat outside on the patio, a flock of Mistle Thrushes passed overhead – no doubt coming from nearby Bushy Park, where they feed during the day. A Grey Heron, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk have also made occasional appearances.

But the one bird that really makes its presence felt is the latest arrival to the local avifauna. Regular as clockwork, at dawn and dusk, flocks of Ring-necked Parakeets appear, shattering the peace and quiet with their noisy calls. We have seen groups of up to 30 birds, presumably heading for their roost at Esher Rugby Club, just across the river. These so-called ‘aliens' are now firmly established as a British breeding bird.