Other editions of book Birds in London

CHAPTER ITHE BIRDS AND THE BOOKPAGEA handbook of London birds considered—Reasons for not writing it—Changes in the character of the wild bird population, and supposed cause—The London sparrow—Its abundance—Bread-begging habits—Monotony—Its best appearance—Beautiful finches—Value of open spaces—The sparrows’ afternoon tea in Hyde Park—Purpose of this book 1CHAPTER IICROWS IN LONDONA short general account of the London crows—The magpie—The jay—London ravens—The Enfield ravens—The Hyde Park ravens—The Tower ravens—The carrion crow, rook, and jackdaw 20CHAPTER IIITHE CARRION CROW IN THE BALANCEThe crow in London—Persecuted in the royal parks—Degradation of Hyde Park—Ducks in the Serpentine: - x -how they are thinned—Shooting a chicken with a revolver—Habits of the Hyde Park mallard—Anecdotes—Number of London crows—The crow a long-lived bird: a bread-eater—Anecdote—Seeks its food on the river—The crow as a pet—Anecdotes 32CHAPTER IVTHE LONDON DAWRarity of the daw in London—Pigeons and daws compared—Æsthetic value of the daw as a cathedral bird—Kensington Palace daws; their disposition and habits—Friendship with rooks—Wandering daws at Clissold Park—Solitary daws—Mr. Mark Melford’s birds—Rescue of a hundred daws—The strange history of an egg-stealing daw—White daws—White ravens—Willughby’s speculations—A suggestion 52CHAPTER VEXPULSION OF THE ROOKSPositions of the rook and crow compared—Gray’s Inn Gardens rookery—Break-up of the old, and futile attempt of the birds to establish new rookeries—The rooks a great loss to London—Why the rook is esteemed—Incidents in the life of a tame rook—A first sight of the Kensington Gardens rookery—The true history of the expulsion of the rooks—A desolate scene, and a vision of London beautified 68CHAPTER VIRECENT COLONISTSThe wood-pigeon in Kensington Gardens—Its increase—Its beauty and charm—Perching on Shakespeare’s statue in Leicester Square—Change of habits—The moorhen—Its - xi -appearance and habits—An æsthetic bird—Its increase—The dabchick in London—Its increase—Appearance and habits—At Clissold Park—The stock-dove in London 89CHAPTER VIILONDON’S LITTLE BIRDSNumber of species, common and uncommon—The London sparrow—His predominance, hardiness, and intelligence—A pet sparrow—Breeding irregularities—A love-sick bird—Sparrow shindies: their probable cause—‘Sparrow chapels’—Evening in the parks—The starling—His independence—Characteristics—Blackbird, thrush, and robin—White blackbirds—The robin—Decrease in London—Habits and disposition 104CHAPTER VIIIMOVEMENTS OF LONDON BIRDSMigration as seen in London—Swallows in the parks—Fieldfares—A flock of wild geese—Autumn movements of resident species—Wood-pigeons—A curious habit—Dabchicks and moorhens—Crows and rooks—The Palace daws—Starlings—Robins—A Tower robin and the Tower sparrows—Passage birds in the parks—Small birds wintering in London—Influx of birds during severe frosts—Occasional visitors—The black-headed gull—A winter scene in St. James’s Park 129CHAPTER IXA SURVEY OF THE PARKS: WEST LONDONA general survey of the metropolitan parks—West London—Central parks, with Holland Park—A bird’s highway—Decrease of songsters—The thrush in Kensington- xii - Gardens—Suggestions—Owls in Kensington Gardens—Other West London open spaces—Ravenscourt Park as it was and as it is 151CHAPTER XNORTH-WEST AND NORTH LONDONOpen spaces on the borders of West London—The Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal Green Cemetery—North-west district—Paddington Recreation Ground, Kilburn Park, and adjoining open spaces—Regent’s Park described—Attractive to birds, but not safe—Hampstead Heath: its character and bird life—The ponds—A pair of moorhens—An improvement suggested—North London districts—Highgate Woods, Churchyard Bottom Wood, Waterlow Park, and Highgate Cemetery—Finsbury Park—A paradise of thrushes—Clissold Park and Abney Park Cemetery 171more...

This early work by William Henry Hudson was originally published in 1898 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory essay. 'Birds in London' gives a compelling account of bird life in London, beautifully illustrated by Bryan Hook and A. D. McCormick. William Henry Hudson was born in 1841 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an author, naturalist, and ornithologist. He spent his youth studying native plants and animals, resulting in the publication of 'Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society'. In the early 1870s, Hudson settled in England and achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including 'Hampshire Day' (1903), 'Afoot in England' (1909) and 'A Shepherd's Life' (1910), which were considered to have influenced the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

The opening chapter contains, by way of introduction, all that need be said concerning the object and scope of this work; it remains to say here that, as my aim has been to furnish an account of the London wild bird life of to-day, there was little help to be had from the writings of previous observers. These mostly deal with the central parks, and are interesting now, mainly, as showing the changes that have taken place. At the end of the volume a list will be found of the papers and books on the subject which are known to me. This list will strike many readers as an exceedingly meagre one, when it is remembered that London has always been a home of ornithologists—that from the days of Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote pleasantly of the Temple Gardens rookery, and of Thomas Pennant and his friend Daines Barrington, there have never been wanting observers of the wild bird life within our gates: The fact remains that, with the exception of a few incidental passages to be found in various ornithological works, nothing was expressly written about the birds of London until James Jennings’s ‘Ornithologia’ saw the light a little over seventy years ago. Jennings’s work was a poem, probably the worst ever written in the English language; but as he inserted copious notes, fortunately in prose, embodying his own observations on the bird life of east and south-east London, the book has a very considerable interest for us to-day. Nothing more of importance appeared until the late Shirley Hibberd’s lively paper on ‘London Birds’ in 1865. From that date onward the subject has attracted an increased attention, and at present we have a number of London or park naturalists, as they might be called, who view the resident London species as adapted to an urban life, and who chronicle their observations in the ‘Field,’ ‘Nature,’ ‘Zoologist,’ ‘Nature Notes,’ and other natural history journals, and in the newspapers and magazines. To return to the present work. Treating of actualities I have been obliged for the most part to gather my own materials, relying perhaps too much on my own observation; since London is now too vast a field for any person, however diligent, to know it intimately in all its extent. Probably any reader who is an observer of birds on his own account, and has resided for some years near a park or other open space in London, will be able to say, by way of criticism, that I have omitted some important or interesting fact known to him—something that ought to have had a place in a work of this kind. In such a case I can only plead either that the fact was not known to me, or that I had some good reason for not using it. Moreover, there is a limit to the amount of matter which can be included in a book of this kind, and a selection had to be made from a large number of facts and anecdotes I had got together. All the matter contained in this book, with the exception of one article, or part of an article, on London birds, in the ‘Saturday Review,’ now appears for the first time

excerpt:There are not many crows in London; the number of the birds that are left are indeed few, and, if we exclude the magpie and jay, there are only three species. But the magpie and jay cannot be left out altogether, when we find both species still existing at a distance of six and a half to seven miles from Charing Cross. The magpie is all but lost; at the present time there are no more than four birds inhabiting inner London, doubtless escaped from captivity, and afraid to leave the parks in which they found refuge—those islands of verdure in the midst of a sea, or desert, of houses. One bird, the survivor of a pair, has his home in St. James’s Park, and is the most interesting figure in that haunt- 21 - of birds; a spirited creature, a great hater and persecutor of the carrion crows when they come. The other three consort together in Regent’s Park; once or twice they have built a nest, but failed to hatch their eggs. Probably all three are females. When, some time ago, the ‘Son of the Marshes’ wrote that the magpie had been extirpated in his own county of Surrey, and that to see it he should have to visit the London parks, he made too much of these escaped birds, which may be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Yet we know that the pie was formerly—even in this- 22 - century—quite common in London. Yarrell, in his ‘British Birds,’ relates that he once saw twenty-three together in Kensington Gardens. In these gardens they bred, probably for the last time, in 1856. Nor, so far as I know, do any magpies survive in the woods and thickets on the outskirts of the metropolis, except at two spots in the south-west district. The fate of the last pair at Hampstead has been related by Harting, in Lobley’s ‘Hampstead Hill’ (London, 1889). For several years this pair had their nest in an unclimbable tree at the Grove; at length, one of the pair was shot by a local bird-stuffer, after which the surviving bird twice found and returned with a new mate; but one by one all were killed by the same miscreant.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.