Birds in London

by W. H. Hudson

To sum up. For many years there have been constant changes going on in the bird population, many species decreasing, a very few remaining stationary, and a few new colonists appearing; but, generally speaking, the losses greatly exceed the gains.

One incidental result of all these changes, and of the variety of conditions existing and the different degrees of protection given, is that some of the open spaces are now distinguished by the possession of species which are found in no other spot in the metropolis, or which have elsewhere become exceedingly rare. Thus, Kensington Gardens alone, of all the interior parks, possesses the owl and the jackdaw; St. James’s Park is distinguished by its large number of wood-pigeons and its winter colonies of black-headed gulls; Battersea Park by its wrens and variety of small delicate songsters, both resident and migratory, and its vast congregation of starlings in late summer and early autumn; Wandsworth Common by its yellowhammers; Gray’s Inn Gardens and Brockwell Park by their rookeries; Streatham by its nightingales, magpies, and jays; Ravenscourt Park by its missel-thrushes; Finsbury Park by its large numbers of thrushes and blackbirds. In Kew Gardens the tree-pipit, pied wagtail, and wryneck are more common than elsewhere; Richmond Park has its heronry and a vast multitude of daws; Wanstead has the turtle-dove and hawfinch, and with its land and water birds of all sizes, from the goldcrest to the heron, mallard, and rook, may claim to possess in its narrow limits a more abundant and varied wild bird life than any other metropolitan open space.

The conclusion I have come to, after a careful study of the subject, is that wild birds of all the species remaining to us, and many besides, are very well able to thrive in London; that many species have been and are being lost solely on account of the indifference of the park authorities in the matter; that the comparative abundance and variety of wild bird life in the different open spaces depends on the degree of protection and encouragement the birds receive. And by encouragement I mean the providing them with islands, shrubberies, and such cover as they require when breeding. Thus, we see that in so vast a space as Hyde Park, where there is practically no protection given and nothing done to encourage wild birds, the songsters are few and are decreasing; while in some comparatively small open spaces constantly thronged with visitors the bird life is abundant and varied, and increasing. It should not be, but certainly is, the case that it depends on the person who is in charge of the open space whether anything shall be done to encourage the birds; if he takes no interest in the matter those who are under him will not concern themselves to save the birds. We have seen that veiled bird-catching is permitted in some of the parks; park constables and park labourers have also been allowed to take nests of thrushes and other songsters containing young birds, for their own pleasure or to dispose of to others.

We have seen that the differences between park and park, with regard to the abundance of bird life, are very great; but despite these differences, which depend on the amount of encouragement and protection given, consequently to a great extent on the personal feeling in the matter of the superintendent, it must be said that sufficient protection has not yet been given in any public space in London. All the open spaces are alike infested by cats, the deadliest enemy of the birds which are of most value—the resident species that sing most of the year, and that nest in low bushes or close to the ground. And so long as cats are allowed to range about the parks these species cannot be said to be properly protected. This last point being of great importance will be treated separately and fully in the next chapter; the rest of this chapter will be occupied in discussing an enemy to the birds less difficult to deal with—the mischievous individuals of our own species who kill and capture birds and take their eggs and young.

The damage done by the ordinary boy, who throws stones and cannot resist the temptation to take a nest when he has the chance, is hardly appreciable in the parks where there is any real desire on the part of the superintendents and keepers to protect the birds. On some of the large open spaces on the outskirts of London, such as Hampstead Heath and the commons in the South-west district, the keepers are too few to protect the nesting birds, and the eggs are very nearly all taken. A much more serious injury is inflicted by the bird fancier from the slums, who visits the parks with the object of stealing the birds, adults and young, and by the worst kind of blackguard or rough, who kills and smashes when he gets the chance solely for the pleasure of destroying something which others value, or, to quote Bacon’s phrase, ‘because he can do no other.’

As to the bird fancier who is a bird stealer, I have said enough in a former chapter to show that he can very easily be got rid of where there is any real desire to protect the birds.

It remains to say something concerning the rough who delights in destruction. That a man should find pleasure in stoning a valuable park bird to death or in trampling down a flower-bed may seem an astonishing thing, when we see that the objects destroyed are solely intended for the people’s pleasure, that they are paid for by the people, and are, in a sense, the people’s property. It may even seem inexplicable, since the rough is a human being and must therefore have the social instinct. But there is really no mystery in it; by inflicting injury on the community he is after all only following other instincts common to man, which are quite as strong and sometimes stronger than the social. He is prompted by the hunting instinct, which is universal and doubtless in him is to some extent perverted; also the love of adventure, since by doing wrong he runs a certain risk, and wins a little glory of a low kind from his associates and others who are of like mind with him; and finally, he is actuated by the love of power, which in its degraded form finds a measure of gratification in hurting others, or in depriving them of a pleasure.

But after all said, these injurious persons are in an exceedingly small, an almost infinitesimal, minority, and the damage they do is little and annually becomes less; so little is it where any vigilance is exercised, that it would not have been worth while to write even these few paragraphs but for the opportunity it gives me of returning to a subject dwelt upon in the opening chapter; for this destructiveness on the part of a few but serves the more fully to illustrate the contrary spirit—the keen and kindly interest in the wild bird life of our open spaces which is almost universal among the people. In the volume dealing with East London, in his enormous work on the ‘Life and Labour of the People,’ Mr. Charles Booth has the following significant passage: ‘The hordes of barbarians of whom we have heard, who, issuing from their slums, will one day overwhelm modern civilisation, do not exist. There are barbarians, but they are a handful, a small and decreasing percentage, a disgrace but not a danger.’ A more absolute confirmation of the truth of these words than the general behaviour of the people who visit the parks, even in the poorest and most congested districts, could not be found. As a rule, when a small park is first opened in some densely populated district, where no public open space previously existed, the people rush in and act as if demented; they are like children released from long confinement who go wild with the first taste of liberty: they shout, climb trees, break off branches, pluck the flowers; but all this is purely the result of a kind of mental intoxication. They are not ‘barbarians’ or ‘yahoos,’ as they are sometimes described by onlookers at the first opening of a new park; they are nothing more than excited young people; the excitement passes, and after a short time the damage ceases, and the place becomes so orderly, and so seldom is any damage done, that the park could almost be left to take care of itself.

I am here tempted to relate two incidents which have occurred at different times in one small open space—Clissold Park. Some tame rooks were kept with the object of establishing a rookery (of which more in a later chapter), and one day last year some young miscreants, who subsequently made their escape, stoned three of the birds to death. The second incident relates to a chaffinch and its nest. The nest was built on a stunted half-dead thorn-bush, very low down and much exposed to sight. Just at the time when the nest was being built some forty or fifty labourers were called in and set to work to form a pond at this very spot, and it was determined to leave a few yards of ground with the thorn-bush standing on it as an island in the middle of the excavation. When the digging began the first eggs had been laid in the nest, but in spite of the crowd of men at work every day and all day long round the bush, and the incessant noises of loud talking and of shovelling clay into carts and shouting of carters to their horses, the birds did not forsake their task; the eggs were all laid, sat on, the young duly hatched and successfully reared amidst the tumult; and during all this time the men engaged on the work were so jealous of the birds’ safety that they would not allow any of the numberless visitors to the park to come near the bush to look closely at the nest. So long as the young were in the nest the workmen were the chaffinch’s bodyguard.