Reflections on nature - A Webb

Young birdwatchers may struggle to grasp that raptors, throughout the seventies and eighties, were far from common; except, that is, for kestrels; which hovered beside England’s busiest motorways, not as an occasional treat, but at regular intervals of perhaps three, or four, miles. Buzzards, too, were common, but in the north, the west and the New Forest. Anywhere else there was little chance of encountering them. There was, though, an up-side, to that, because those seen, elsewhere, were likely to be honey buzzards, or, in winter, rough-legged ones. Hence alarm-bells tended to ring and there was less of a needle in a haystack aspect. It’s also true that a kite encountered, during the summer months and away from central Wales, would, in almost all cases, be a vagrant ‘black’ one. These days observers may, quite easily, overlook them, amid the large flocks that stem from a hugely successful reintroduction program; but red kites are glorious. They were in their scarcity and are, every i...

At the age of perhaps eight, or nine, my interest in ornithology was embryonic, but thumbing my father’s Collins field guide helped it to thrive. The more unusual species held, for me, an almost mystical quality. Photographic guides were fewer than today and so I knew them from representations, by fine-artists, including Basil Ede and Charles Tunnicliffe. They were celebratory works; intended, surely, to emphasise colour and add an extra layer of drama; and the buzz, for me, was to imagine how they would appear, in the flesh, or more accurately, of course, in the plumage. The thrill, then, of seeing paintings brought to life would become an elusive and longed for prize. Of course, birds don’t look as they do in such paintings. Sometimes they seem better, sometimes worse, but never the same. I recall standing in the grounds of Norfolk’s Castle Acre priory; having been dropped there in order that my father could visit someone in a nearby village. Goldfinches were present; excitingly so,...

The presence of so many once-rare birds, in Britain, has caused me to think. My engagement with twitching was brief and the whole business of visiting reserves troubles me now, in a way I had not imagined. I think of a future occurrence: a scenario in which I am seated within a hide and recognise an obscure rarity; one that’s tricky to identify and easily overlooked. The urge is there to tell those beside me, but also an understanding of the game. I do, though, announce the presence of let’s say a ‘first for Britain’ and trigger a chain of events that leads to a road fatality. Were that to transpire, what would he, or she, have died for? But not to share such a find with fellow enthusiasts still seems churlish and would strip away much pleasure. Crazy though it may seem and wonderful though birds are, I no longer wish to encounter rare ones and avoid looking at common birds, sometimes, in case I might. This is not a condemnation of twitchers. Most are skilled and responsible motorist...

My awareness of peregrines began with a display-stand, at an agricultural show; a panoramic scene, that featured many species. In the foreground were puffins, crows, gulls and assorted waders; and there, in the distance, the falcon: a sky-owning presence, which yielded little detail; not much more than an unusually arresting outline. But it was the bird that fascinated me most; the one I wanted to know much more about. Some months later, we were sat in class, to learn of the peregrine’s possible extinction, in the British Isles and the battle to prevent such an occurrence. DDT pesticides were spoken of and how their passage through the food-chain had caused thinly-shelled eggs; ones that did not hatch. Could the species be preserved? Gloriously, that question is now answered. Peregrines have, I suggest, been undersold, even by conservation-groups, because, when we look at one, we see not only the fastest living bird, or even creature. We do, in fact, have, before us, the fastest life...