BIRDS

Audio: Sture Palmer & Jeffery Boswall (1931-2012) Peterson Field Guide To The Bird Songs of Britain and Europe Carlton (2008).

Bird Art

Edward Lear

Edward Lear was a noted bird artist. He drew London Zoo's parrots by working within their cages. His lasting fame was to be as a nonsense poet.

Location: 30 Seymour Street, W1H 7JB (red, brown)

John Gould

John Gould (1804-1881) was a self-taught taxidermist. He was very successful in his trade. He went on to publish luxury illustrated folios about birds. He seems to have been inspired to do by the success of Edward Lear's Illustrations of The Family Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832) and the arrival at the Zoological Society's museum of a consignment of Himalayan birds . The initial ones were illustrated by his wife. Lear was one the other illustrators who worked on the project.

Bird Food

Tax

In 2024 it was the case that 20% V.A.T. was charged on peanuts if they were packaged as bird food. However, the tax was not levied if were sold loose or in bags that weighed more than 12.5kg..

See Also: FOOD Nuts, Tax

Birds of Prey

There are two type of wild raptor that live in London: kestrels and peregrine falcons.

Peregrine falcons are a coastal bird. They have a preference for living on high towers, such as industrial chimneys. A number of town halls have such towers. In 2020 there were about 35 pairs of falcons living in London.

The Great Exhibition of 1851

The 1^st Duke of Wellington suggested that a sparrowhawk could be used to control the sparrows that had taken up residence in the Crystal Palace.

Location: The Old Football Pitches, Hyde Park, W2 2UH (orange, purple)

The Lords of Man

The Lords of Man held the island from the Crown in fee. They were required to homage and present two falcons to the sovereign at her/his coronation. In 1765 the Duchess of Atholl sold her family's feudal rights to the Crown.

Mews

Mewses are small streets in areas of London that were fashionable 18^thC and 19^thC. They are composed of buildings that used to be the stables of the large period houses behind them.

The word mews is descended from the Latin verb mutare, which means to change . Originally, a mews was a building where hunting hawks were kept while they were moulting their feathers. The first Royal Mews building at Charing Cross was erected during the 1380s. Horses came to be stabled in the building and so the equine associated aspect of the word developed. With time, the birdcare facet became largely forgotten.

Location: Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS. The square now occupies the site of the Royal Mews. (purple, yellow)

See Also: HORSES Mews

Pigeon Control

A female Harris hawk is used to control pigeons in a mews to the north of Selfridges.

Location: Edwards Mews, W1U 1QZ (orange, pink)

Bird-Watching

Blackbirds

Until the end of the 19^thC the blackbird was purely a woodland bird. Urban blackbirds have shorter beaks than rural ones. This is because the former have developed broad diets than the latter and therefore do not spend as much time pecking into the ground in order to try to find worms.

Budgerigars

The taxidermist John Gould introduced the budgerigar to Britain as a pet.

Winston Churchill had a budgie called Toby.

Cockfighting

The Phoenix Theatre (1616-c.1665) in Drury Lane was adapted from a cockpit that had been built as part of a gaming complex in the early 1530s.

Location: Martlett Court, WC2B 5EU (purple, pink)

The Cockpit

A renowned 18^thC Westminster cockpit is commemorated by the name Cockpit Steps. William Hogarth drew it in one of his engravings that commented upon London life in the era. The building was sometimes used by leading politicians as a forum in which to address M.P.s. about informal political matters that could not be spoken about in the Commons Chamber.

Location: Cockpit Steps, SW1H 9AP (red, yellow)

Ducks

Mandarin Ducks

The wealthy, Dutch-born merchant Sir Matthew Decker had Mandarin ducks on his pond at Richmond. However, they were not to breed in Britain until the 19^thC.

Eggs

Richard Meinertzhagen was a traveller, ornithologist, soldier, writer, and intelligence officer. He knew T.E. Lawrence in Arabia, who had the measure of him. He wrote The Birds of Arabia (1954). He gave thousands of birds eggs to the Rothschild Museum in Tring including a Syrian ostrich egg.

In the 1990s it came to be appreciated that in large Meinertzhagen had been a fraud. Many of the eggs that he had given away had been stolen from the Natural History Museum.

Feathers

The Feather Trade

The trade in exotic bird feathers. Edward Lear was concerned about this. He referred to it his short story The Four Little Children Who Went Round The World (1871).

Location: Plumage House, 106 Shepherdess Walk, N1 7JN

Sarah Abrevaya Stein Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews and A Lost World of Global Commerce Yale University Press (2009).

See Also: HEADGEAR

Edwin Rist

The Natural History Museum developed one of the world's largest collections of bird skins. During the Blitz the institution s building was struck by aerial bombs a couple of dozen times. A decision was made to transfer the skins to Tring, which was regarded as being safer.

In the late 19^thC a portion of the international of the feather trade was devoted to supplying fly tiers who made flies for anglers with feathers from tropical birds. Edwin Rist was an American who, aged ten, had watched a television documentary about the craft. He had taken it up and despite its technical difficulty had become an outstanding practitioner of it in his adolescence. A gifted individual, he had studied flute at the Royal Academy of Music. However, fly tying had continued to be a passion. In 2009 he had broken into the Museum's Tring outpost and stolen 299 tropical bird skins. The fact that he had not stolen items, such as John James Audobon's The Birds of America (1839), which had a far higher financial value, led the authorities to appreciate that the robbery had been committed by someone who had a particular interest that was connected to the historic feather trade. The following year Rist was apprehended while still in possession of the majority of the skins. In 2011 he was tried for the crime and convicted. He was given a twelve-month-long suspended sentence.

Location: The Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT (purple, yellow)

See Also: ROBBERY

Geese

Old Tom

The goose Old Tom lived in Leadenhall Market. He died in 1835 aged 38. The Times newspaper ran an obituary of the bird. The Lamb Tavern's dive bar is named after him.

Location: The Lamb Tavern, 10-12 Leadenhall Market, EC3V 1LR (red, blue)

Website: www.lambtavernleadenhall.com

The Great Auk

The Great Auk was hunted to extinction in about 1852.

Location: The Treasures Gallery, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD (blue, red)

Eggs Is Eggs

In order to try to attract custom T.G. Middlebrook, the landlord of The Edinburgh Castle on Mornington Road near Regent's Park, built up a collection three great auks eggs. Each was slightly larger than a goose egg. It is reputed that one cabmen when he heard that a third one had been purchased for 200 guineas drove to the pub at full pelt. Upon being shown them he exclaimed Wot? Thet? Corl thet a Great Hork s Hegg? W y, from wot they tole me, I thort it was abaht the size of me bloomin keb!

Location: The Edinburgh Castle, 57 Mornington Terrace, NW1 7RU (purple, pink)

Website: www.edinborocastlepub.co.uk

Migration

In the 17^thC the Dissenter educator the Rev Charles Morton (1627-1698) theorised that some varieties of bird wintered on the Moon.

Location: Newington Green, Stoke Newington, N16 9PR. Morton ran a school in the village.

Nightingales

Nightingales have a marked preference for scrubby, unkempt, overgrown habitats. Berlin has a large population of the bird, whereas London does not.

Ornithology

Francis Willoughby

Francis Willoughby and John Ray wrote F. Willughbei Ornithologi libri tres Totum opus recognovit (1672). The book enabled birds to be categorised even if they had not been encountered before.

Parakeets

The multiple releases may date back to the 19^thC.

Green parakeets featured in the John Huston-directed movie The African Queen (1951), which was filmed at Ealing Studios. It is reputed that they were released once they were no longer needed.

By 1961 birds were the most popular pet. However, there were news stories that people were dying from diseases that parrots had imparted to them. Releases may have bolstered the population.

There is a tale that Jimi Hendrix released two in Carnaby Street.

Ring-necked parakeets were first reported in the wild in 1969.

In 2010 parakeets were added to Nature England's list of plants and animals that can be killed without a licence.

Location: Carnaby Street, W1F 7PA (orange, purple)

Ealing Studios, Ealing Green, W5 5EP

Parrots

Ancient parrot remains have been recovered from London clay.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

Polly, a parrot, inhabited Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub that was used by Fleet Street journalists. On the bird s 1926 death, aged 40, its obituary was carried in newspapers across the globe.

Location: Wine Office Court, 145 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BU (red, grey)

Website: wwwyeoldecheshirecheese.com

Peacocks

Feltham Young Offenders Institution

Feltham Young Offenders Institution has a population of peacocks.

Location: Bedfont Road, Feltham, TW13 4NP

Website: www.gov.uk/guidance/feltham-yoi

Holland Park Park
Holland Park used to have a man with a high-powered water pistol fend off any peacock that looked as though they might be coming too close.

Location: Ilchester Place, W8 6LU (red, pink)

Website: www.rbkc.gov.uk/explore-kensington-and-chelsea/holland-park www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/parks/holland-park

Intersex Plumage

John Hunter had a peahen that developed male plumage. In the 19^thC other female-to-male intersex birds were anatomised by the bookseller William Yarrell (1784-1856). He appreciated that the animals had had diseased ovaries that had almost certainly caused the changes

Pigeons

Originally, pigeons were a species of coastal bird. With time, they extended their range inland. London's buildings provided them with a substitute for cliffs.

The 1^st Duke of Wellington had a pigeon loft in Nine Elms. In 1845 one of his birds was released on Ichaboe Island off the Namibian coast. 55 days later its dead body was found a mile away from the loft. It had flown 5400 miles.

Charles Darwin believed that domestic pigeons might furnish a means of backing his argument about evolution.

See Also: MEAT; TRAFALGAR SQUARE; WEATHER

Dickin Pigeons

Maria Dickin (1870-1951) had founded the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in 1917 to offer affordable veterinary care. In 1943, during the Second World War, she established the Dickin Medal both to raise the charity's profile and to honour the contribution that animals were making to the war effort. The military were supportive of the idea because it an award of the honour was almost always a good news story. Homing pigeons dominated the roll of honour.

The first one went to the pigeon Winkie. She had been part of the crew of a Beaufort bomber. After it had crashed into the North Sea, she escaped before a message could be attached to her and had flown back to her home loft. However, her owner noted the time of her arrival. This information, when combined her probably flying speed, the known route of the raft, its flying speed, and time at which had taken off, enabled a probable crash zone to be identified. An S.O.S. had been out before the catch. A rescue mission was dispatched and the aircaftmen were rescued.

In 1943 The 56^th London Division captured Calvi Vecchia in Italy in advance of schedule. However, the town was due to be bombed by the United States Air Force. Radio communication was not possible. G.I. Joe, a pigeon, was released and managed to get the message through in time. Up to a thousand or so lives were saved.

Website: www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/animal-awards-programme/pdsa-dickin-medal

Operation Columba

M.I.14D s Operation Columba arranged for canisters with parachutes to be dropped from R.A.F. planes as they flew over Belgium during the night. The vessels contained homing pigeons, that once released would return to their home lofts in England, and a questionnaire. Ordinary people would find the canister and then write what they knew about Nazi military activity in their locality. Only a minority of the pigeons made the homeward flight as some were handed in and others were eaten. However, the intelligence that they brought with them was of use. Message 37 was of such a high quality that it was shown to Churchill since it reinforced his belief that there was a spirit of resistance across Europe. In all 16,000 pigeons were dropped.

Organisations

The British Homing World Show

The British Homing World Show has been described as the Crufts of pigeon-keeping.

World: www.britishhomingworld.com

The Royal Pigeon Racing Association

The Royal Racing Association

In 2024 it was reported that there had been an increase in young people taking up pigeon racing. A factor in this had been the development of shared lofts. These enabled individuals to have just one or two birds. This made the sport cheaper for them to participate in and therefore more accessible.

World: www.rpra.org

Threaded Amputation

The reason why pigeons frequently lose a foot is because they move about the ground with a form of shuffle whereas most other birds hop. As a result, pieces of thread often become wrapped around their legs. They have no means of removing these. If the threads do not fall off they become increasingly tight, eventually killing off the blood supply to the foot below and thereby causing the foot's flesh to die. It will rot and then fall off.

Trafalgar Square

In 1996 it was reported that the police were investigating the mysterious disappearance of hundreds of pigeons from Trafalgar Square. A possible cause was a man whom passers-by had seen trapping the birds in baited boxes. It was speculated that he might have been selling the pigeons carcasses to restaurants.

One theory forwarded at the time was that the warmth of the previous summer and autumn had led to a larger crop of berries and nuts than usual. This meant that wood pigeons were able to feed themselves in woodland. Therefore, they did not need to break cover to feed in the fields. Ergo, they were less likely to be shot. This had created a rise in the price that restaurants were prepared to pay for pigeon meat, and thus an incentive for a bit of urban poaching.

In 2003 a 50 fine for feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square came into force. Subsequently, it was reported that the number of pigeons in square had been reduced from 4000 to 200.

Location: Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS (purple, yellow)

Placenames

Cranford - cranes

Location: Bath Road, Cranford, TW6 2AA

Herne Hill derives its name from heron .

Location: Herne Hill Road, SE24 0AY

Protection

The Sea Birds Preservation Act of 1869 was the first bird protection measure.

Ravens

Literary Ravens

Charles Dickens had a pet raven called Grip. The creature died from eating paint chips. The novelist used it as the model for a raven in Barnaby Rudge (1841). Edgar Allen Poe was commissioned to review the book. He panned it. However, he went on to use it as the basis for his story The Raven.

See Also: CHARLES DICKENS

Reserves

The London Wetland Centre

Location: Queen Elizabeth's Walk, Barnes, SW13 9WT

Website: www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/london

Rainham Marshes

The R.S.P.B. Rainham Marshes reserve in Essex was formerly a Ministry of Defence shooting range.

Website: www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/rainham-marshes

Ringing

Harry Witherby (1873-1943), the editor of British Birds, supplied bird ringers with rings with which to ring birds. In 1912 a Witherby ring revealed that some swallows wintered in South Africa.

Location: 326 High Holborn, WC1V 7PE. The family business. (orange, pink)

St James's Park

Website: www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/st-jamess-park

Birdcage Walk

The Birdcage Walk aviary was established by King James I (d.1625) and enlarged by his grandson King Charles II.

Until 1828 only members of the royal family and the Grand Falconer could have their carriages drive along Birdcage Walk.

Location: Birdcage Walk, SW1E 6HQ (blue, red)

The Governor of Duck Island

The wide variety of species of bird present on St James's Park Lake owes much to King Charles II's (d.1685) interest in ornithology. Many were effectively exiles from their native habitats as he himself had been for over a decade after his father Charles I had lost the Civil Wars of the 1640s.

Charles II appointed Charles de Marquetel de St Evremond as the Governor of Duck Island. This absurd position honoured the popular exiled French poet without antagonising the French court

St James's Park Lake

Charles II's nephew King William III had a hide on St James's Park Lake's Duck Island that he used this for bird-watching.

The medieval historian and keen ornithologist Richard Vaughan (1927-2014) proposed to his wife in 1955. It is reputed that he made the offer conditional upon her being able to name all of the varieties of duck that lived on the lake in St James's Park.

Location: St James's Park, SW1A 2BJ (purple, yellow)

See Also: SUBTERRANEAN RIVERS

Pelicans

There have been pelicans on the lake in St James's Park since the 1660s. The colony is descended from a gift from a Russian Ambassador.¹

The pelicans are fed at 14:30 p.m.. The fish are thrown with an underarm throw to ensure that the cormorants do not get them.

¹. In 1996 it was reported that a pelican was living wild at Enfield.

Seagulls

Seagulls are Arctic birds that are a common sight in the parks of central London. The birds are a sign of city's maritime heritage.

In the early there were a series of bad smogs. These killed thousands of people. The Clean Air Act of 1956 was passed in an attempt to end these. The measure banned the operators of landfill sites from burning rubbish on-site. The refuse was exposed for long enough, before being covered, to allow herring gulls and lesser black-back gulls an opportunity to exploit it as a food source. This furnished gulls with an immense feeding opportunity. As a result, they started to live more inland than they had before.

See Also: WASTE

Quarks

A quark is the cry of a seagull. The writer James Joyce used the word in Finnegan's Wake (1939). In turn, the Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Murray Gell-Mann utilsed it to describe the particle that is the fundamental building block of all matter.

Shakespeare's Influence

In 1890 Eugene Schieffelin (1827-1906) decided to introduce into the United States every bird that had been mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.

Songbirds

The Huguenots used to keep caged songbirds that they had compete against one another.

Location: The Birdcage, 80 Columbia Road, c.E2 7FA (red, turquoise)

Starlings

There are few references to starlings prior to the 18^thC. In Welsh they were called adern y eira (snow bird), which implies that then they may have been seasonal migrants. It would seem that environmental changes, such as improved food supply as a result of the agricultural improvements and warmer weather, helped them spread more widely during the 19^thC.

Urban starlings have shorter wings than their rural counterparts. This is in order to reduce the likelihood of their colliding with moving vehicles.

Murmurations

During the winter starlings engage in murmurations

During most of the year staling flocks are small. However, in late summer juveniles start to congregate with one another. The flocks are enlarged by starlings that have flown west to avoid Europe's harsher winters.

In late birds start to fly back to their roost, in some instances they fly over twenty miles. By dusk a full murmuration forms. This can include several thousand birds. In some instances over a million participate.

The birds fly as close to their neighbours as they can. If any bird deviates in its flight the effect is magnified as its spreads through the flock.

The purpose of a murmuration is for a starling to avoid become the prey of a bird of prey. Every bird seeks to avoid being on edge where it may be taken.

In 1949 so many starlings rested on one of the hands of Big Ben, the clock stopped.

Swans

Every swan in Britain is owned by one of four entities: the Crown, the owner of the Manor of Abbotsbury in Dorset, the Dyers Company, or the Vintners Company. Each year, in the late summer, the two City livery companies and the Crown organise a Swan Upping expedition that marks a number of swans on the Thames in order to assert their ownership of the birds. The mission usually takes place upriver of Henley-on-Thames in the deep south-eastern of Oxfordshire. Nominated officials of the three parties round up cygnets and notch the young birds beaks. The Dyers birds receive one nick and the Vintners two. As the Crown's receive none... it does rather well from the process.

Website: (Ownership) www.royal.uk/swans https://abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/swannery www.dyerscompany.co.uk/the-company/swans www.vintnershall.co.uk/swans

Tits

Great Tit

In 2015 it was reported that urban great tits sang at a higher pitch than their rural relatives.

Woodpigeons

In 2008 it was reported that in the British Trust for Ornithology's garden survey the wood pigeon had risen from eleventh in 1995 to third. The bird was even being found in central London. This stemmed the practice of many farmers of raising two crops a year rather than one and the use of more efficient reaping equipment. As a result, there was less seed left behind after harvesting. In addition, cheaper bird seeds had a high cereal content and therefore appealed to the birds. Smaller birds such as greenfinches and chaffinches preferred the more expensive varieties.

David Backhouse 2024