The Naturalist on the Thames

by C. J. Cornish

The return of the birds, and especially of wild fowl, to the London river is the result partly of the same causes which have restored the fish to its waters; partly, also, of measures affecting a wider area, but carried out with far less physical difficulty. Their presence is evidence that the tidal Thames now yields them a stock of food so abundant as to tempt birds like the heron, the water-hen, and the kingfisher back to their old haunts. It shows, secondly, that the by-laws for the protection of birds passed by the counties of London, Surrey, and Middlesex, and by the Thames Conservancy (which was the pioneer in this direction by forbidding shooting on the river), are so far effective that the stock is rapidly increasing; and, lastly, that the birds are preserved and left in peace to a great extent on the London river itself. The following are the most marked instances of this return of river fowl which have come under the writer's notice; but in every case there have been preliminary advances on the part of the birds, which show that what is now recorded is only one step further in the general tendency to resume their old habits, or even to go beyond their former limits of place and time in resorting to the river. The herons from Richmond Park have extended their usual nightly fishing ground, which formerly ended at Kew Bridge, four miles further down the river, almost to Hammersmith Bridge, and in place of coming late at night, under cover of darkness, have made a practice of flying down at dusk, and pitching on the edge of Chiswick Eyot. [1] Their regular appearance led to various inquiries as to the nature of the "big birds like geese" which flew down the river and made a noise in the evening, questions which were answered, in one case, by the appearance of one of the birds as it swung round in the air opposite a terrace of houses, and dropped in the stream to fish, not twenty yards from the road. As the heron is naturally among the shyest of all waterside birds, and seeks solitude above all things, these visits show that the quantity of fish in the lower river must be great, and also that the London herons, now never shot at, are losing their inbred dislike of houses and humanity. Their footprints have been found on the mud opposite a creek in Hammersmith, round which is one of the most crowded quarters of the poorer folk of West London. The birds had been fishing within ten yards of the houses, which at this point are largely inhabited by organ-grinders and vendors of ice-creams, callings which do not promote quiet and solitude in the immediate neighbourhood. In the evening and early morning a few wild ducks accompany the herons as low as the reach above Hammersmith Bridge, and single ducks have been seen even at midday flying overhead. At sunrise one Midsummer Day I saw a sheldrake (probably an escaped bird) flying down the river, looking very splendid in its black, white, and red plumage, in the bright light of the morning. It haunted the reach for some days, and was not shot. Among other visitors to this part of the river and its island during spring were a curlew, which fed for some time on the eyot during the early morning, and a pair of pheasants, one of which, an old-fashioned English cock bird, was subsequently captured unhurt. A flock of sandpipers remained there for some weeks, and during the summer numbers of sedge-warblers have nested on and around the eyot; the cuckoo has been a regular visitor to the osier-bed in the early morning, probably with a view to laying its eggs in the sedge-warblers' nests. As a set-off to these early visits of the cuckoo, a nightjar has hunted round the islet for moths, both at dusk and during the night, when its note may often be heard. This is a fairly long list of interesting birds revisiting a portion of the river which the London boundary crosses. At a distance of less than half a mile, on some ornamental water near the river, an even more unexpected increase of the bird population has been noted. A pair of kingfishers nested and reared their brood in an old gravel-pit, while several nests of young dabchicks hatched by the pool. [2] There also during the spring a pair of tufted ducks appeared, and remained for some days before going on their journey to their breeding haunts. One lamentable event in the bird life of the Thames deserves mention. A pair of swans ventured to nest within a few hundred feet of the London boundary. The hen, a very shy young bird, laid three eggs on Chiswick Eyot, and the pair, being supplied with material, diligently built up their nest day by day until it was above the tide level. They sat for five weeks, the cock bird keeping anxious guard day and night, while the hen would probably have died of starvation unless fed by kindly neighbours, for the river affords very little food for a swan, and this required far longer time to find than the bird was willing to spare from her nest. This was then robbed in the night, and the cock bird maltreated in defending it. The return of fish and fowl to the London Thames shows by the best of tests that the efforts of the Thames Conservancy to preserve the amenities of the river, of the Sewage Committee of the County Council to maintain its purity, or rather to render it less impure at its mouth, and of the adjacent County Authorities to protect bird life, are all yielding good results, and justify the courage with which such an apparently hopeless task was undertaken. To the Conservancy I would offer one or two suggestions, which County Councillors might also consider. The river is the only large natural feature still left in the area of London and Greater London. Now that it contains water in place of sewage, there is a guarantee that its main element as a natural amenity in a great city will be maintained, and as it becomes purer, so will the facilities which it offers for boating, fishing, and bathing increase. But it should not be embanked beyond the present limit at Putney. Stone walls are not a thing of beauty, and a natural river-bank is. At present, from Putney to Richmond the greater part of the Thames flows between natural boundaries. If these can be maintained, the growth of willows, sedge, hemlock, reeds, water ranunculus, and many other fine and luxuriant plants affords insect food for the fish and shelter for the birds, besides giving to the river its natural floral border. If this is replaced by stone banks the birds and the fish will move elsewhere.

[1] Mr. J.E. Vincent tells me that in 1902 the herons were heard as far down the river as Chelsea.

[2] In the beautiful grounds of Chiswick House, where the present occupier, Dr. T. Tuke, carefully preserves all wild birds.

[OSIERS AND WATER-CRESS]

Osiers, the shoots of which are cut yearly for making baskets, crates, lobster-pots, and eel-traps are a form of crop of which not nearly as much is made in the Thames Valley as their profitable return warrants. Properly managed they nearly always pay well, and, in addition, they are very ornamental, and for the whole of the summer, autumn, and winter are one of the very best forms of covert for game. They are commonly seen near rivers, especially in parts where the ground is flooded in winter. But osiers may be grown anywhere on good ground, and are a rapid and paying crop, giving very little trouble, though they need some attention even on the banks of tidal rivers. It is estimated that in the whole of Great Britain there are only between 7,000 and 8,000 acres of osier beds, but these average three tons of rods per acre, and the value of the crop when harvested is often at least £15 per acre gross return. As fruit cultivation is immensely increasing in England, there is a corresponding increase in the demand for baskets to put the fruit in. This is the main reason why osiers, unlike most farm crops, keep up their price. Immense quantities are now imported from Belgium, France, and Germany because our own crop is not nearly sufficient. [1] They do not require a wet soil or to be near water: all that the willow roots need is that the land shall be good and not too dry or sandy. Stagnant, boggy ground does not suit them at all, though they will grow well in light loam. Many species of osier are of most brilliant colouring in winter and early spring. In some the rods are golden yellow; in others the bark is almost scarlet with a bright polish, and the osier bed forms a brilliant object from December to February, just before the rods are cut. The kind of willow grown varies from the slender, tough withes used in making small baskets and eel-traps, to the large, fast-growing rods suited for making crates for heavy goods. The planter must find out for which kind there is the readiest market in the neighbourhood, and then get his land ready. It needs thorough clearing and trenching to the depth of from twenty to thirty inches. The young osiers should then be put in. These should be taken from a nursery in which they have been "schooled" for one year, as in that case they will produce a crop fit to cut one year earlier than if the cuttings have been put at once in the new osier-bed. The cuttings when transferred to the bed should be put in twelve inches apart in the rows, and these rows made at two feet distance from each other. They will need hoeing to keep the ground clear, which will cost £l to £2 per acre for the first two years, and this should be done before the middle of June. When the osiers are well started they grow so densely that they kill out the weeds themselves. The rate of growth even on ordinary field-land is astonishing; they will add eighteen inches in a week. February and March are the months for planting, and March also sees the osier harvest when the time comes to cut them. In the fens the harvesting of the rods begins earlier, but this depends usually on the season, the object being to cut them before the sap begins to rise. Osiers particularly invite the attention of those who are desirous of planting coverts for game. They are a paying crop, and a quick crop, giving cover sooner and of better quality than almost any other form of underwood, and are also very ornamental. It is true that they are cut yearly, but this is not till the shooting season is over. Meantime there is no covert which pheasants like so much as osier-beds, especially if they are near water.

On Chiswick Eyot, which is entirely planted with osiers, there are standing at the time of writing six stacks of bundles set upright. Each stack contains about fifty bundles of the finest rods, nine feet high. Thus the eyot yields at least three hundred bundles. This osier-bed is cut quite early in the year, usually in January, and by February all the fresh rods are planted. Before being peeled the osiers are stood upright in water for a month, and some begin to bud again. This is to make the sap run up, I presume, by which means the bark comes off more readily. I believe that the Chiswick osiers, being of the largest size, are used for making crates, and that they are cut early because there is no need to peel them.

Water-cress growing is an increasing business in the Thames Valley, where the head of every little brook or river in the chalk is used for this purpose. This is good both for business in general and for the fish, for water-cress causes the accumulation of a vast quantity of fish food in various forms.

The artificial culture of water-cress is comparatively modern, and a remarkably pretty side-industry of the country.

Formerly, the cress gatherer was usually a gipsy, or "vagrom man," who wandered up to the springs and by the head waters of brooks at dawn, and took his cresses as the mushroom-gatherer takes mushrooms--by dint of early rising and trespass.