History of Birding part 2: The early 20th century, 1901-1939
The first half of the twentieth century saw a sea-change in attitudes towards watching birds, which would eventually culminate in the birding boom which followed the Second World War. In the second in his series on the history and origins of birdwatching, STEPHEN MOSS examines how the hobby changed during this crucial period.
In 1974, a slim volume of memoirs appeared, bearing an intriguing title. 'Seventy Years of Birdwatching' was written by H. G. (Horace) Alexander, who according to the jacket blurb, "began birdwatching in earnest in 1898 and has never stopped". 'H.G.', as he was known to successive generations of birdwatchers, continued observing birds until his death in 1989 at the age of 100.
H.G. was one of four brothers, three of whom became eminent ornithologists.
Yet incredibly, many of their early observations were made without the aid of binoculars: H.G. did not own a pair until his 21st birthday in 1910, by which time he had been watching birds for at least twelve years!
Despite this apparent handicap, H.G. managed to see some rare and impressive birds, including one to make the modern twitcher green with envy, On 4th July 1908, at Littlestone in Kent, Alexander came across three Pallas's Sandgrouse, an irruptive species which has hardly ever occurred again in the British Isles.
H.G. Alexander's memoirs span a period of unprecedented change in birdwatching, during which there was an explosion in interest and knowledge about birds. Meanwhile, as more and more people began observing birds in the field rather than the museum, the first stirrings of a new science began: the study of bird behaviour now known as ethology. One pioneer was Sir Julian Huxley, who spent a summer holiday watching Great Crested Grebes on a reservoir near Tring in Hertfordshire, and produced a seminal paper on the subject. This was unusual at a time when, as one social scientist put it:
"Ornithology, like the collecting of butterflies, was dismissedas a dilettante pursuit for 'mere amateurs'".
Another area being properly explored for the first time was that of migration. The German ornithologist Gatke had made a start back in the 19th century, with his pioneering observations on the island of Heligoland in the North Sea. Following in his footsteps, in autumn 1905 William Eagle Clarke "stumbled across" Fair Isle, and was immediately overwhelmed by the number and variety of migrants. Clarke could not be on Fair Isle all year round, so he employed one of the islanders, George Stout, as a bird-recorder. By paying him a small sum he thus made Stout the first ever professional birdwatcher!
Meanwhile, another method of studying birds - one which would lead to rapid improvements in our knowledge - was also being pioneered. In 1899, a Danish ornithologist, Christian Mortensen, had become the first person to put numbered rings on the legs of birds. In 1909, Sir Landsborough Thomson in Scotland and Harry Witherby in England also began to ring birds, the latter's work eventually becoming the official British scheme. Although the advent of war brought bird ringing to a temporary halt, it grew again rapidly between the two world wars, developing into the national scheme we know today.
But the most important development of all was the arrival of decent optics. The first prismatic binoculars, which gave a genuine 'binocular vision' were patented in France as early as 1859, but it was not until the late 19th century that models became widely available. Once they did so, they soon became standard equipment for birdwatchers.
Binoculars allowed birdwatchers to identify birds with certainty, without having to resort to the gun; and this, in turn, led to an interest in finding out more about their populations and range. This began in the unlikely surroundings of Oxford University, where as well as the 'Brideshead set' whose life was an endless round of balls and parties, a small group of young men spent their spare time pioneering bird surveys. They were led by a man who would become a towering figure in 20th century birding, and who is still active today at the age of 98 - Max Nicholson.
Nicholson went up to Oxford in 1926, and soon went to work organising the Oxford Bird Census. Meanwhile he began his extraordinarily prolific career as a writer, publishing his first book, 'Birds in England' when he was still only 22 years old. Nicholson was determined to lead ornithology away from what has been called "the Victorian leprosy of collecting. In its place, he called for a revolutionary new approach: one that would eventually become the science of ecology.
In 1928, Nicholson launched the first ever national survey of a single species carried out anywhere in the world: a census of heronries. In a brilliant move, he dramatically increased coverage by publishing appeals for help in local and national newspapers. Almost 400 people joined the census, with much of the fieldwork made possible by the extensive use of a relatively new arrival on the scene, the private car.
More than sixty years later, in the early 1990s, I met Max Nicholson at the press launch of the New Atlas of Breeding Birds. He was standing alone in a corner of the room, gazing intently at the new survey map for the Grey Heron, and chuckling quietly to himself. Presumably he was simply amazed that from such humble beginnings, Britain's birds are today more closely surveyed and studied than any other comparable fauna in the world.
In 'The Study of Birds', published in 1929, Nicholson expounded his core philosophy, in a chapter entitled 'How to Observe':
"One cannot observe without a theory, and what seems the simplest of ornithological tasks - to go out of doors and look out for something worth recording - is in reality one of the hardest… It is a mistake to imagine that complete impartiality and freedom from preconceived ideas is the qualification for the perfect observer. The cow has a remarkably open mind, yet it has never been found to reach a high degree of civilisation."
By the early 1930s, this pioneering Oxford group had become a major organisation, making severe demands on its amateur organisers and limited resources. Nicholson realised that to achieve a national census of all bird populations, a new organisation would be needed. So in 1932 he set up the British Trust for Ornithology, becoming its first secretary.
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The forgotten figure of this revolution went on to have an influence far beyond the confines of the ornithological world. Tom Harrisson was a extraordinary, charismatic figure, full of ideas: "four-fifths totally impractical, one-fifth brilliant", as his obituarist in 'British Birds' put it.
As a result of taking part in bird surveys, Harrisson turned his attention to an even more widespread group of animals: his fellow human-beings. In the late 1930s he set up an organisation called Mass-Observation (M-O), which set out to do for ordinary British people what the BTO was doing for birds: to carry out detailed scientific studies on contemporary society, using a body of amateur observers to collect the data. Many ornithologists got involved with M-O, including Max Nicholson, James Fisher and Richard Fitter. Fitter believes that Harrisson's interest in studying people happened as a direct result of his early experience of bird surveys.
Tom Harrisson went on to have a glittering and varied career in a wide range of fields. Ironically, this ultimately led to his pioneering ornithological work being largely forgotten. After he was killed in a motor accident in Thailand in 1976, one observer remarked:
"It is one of the absurdities of our science that T.H. Harrisson - who as ornithologist, anthropologist, sociologist, biologist, museum curator, conservationist, and adventurer became one of the great polymaths of his time - is largely unknown to birdwatchers today."
Men like Max Nicholson and Tom Harrisson dragged birdwatching out of the Victorian era of guns and museums, and into the field where birds could be observed in their proper context. This not only led to a deeper knowledge and understanding of birds, but even more importantly helped to popularise birdwatching as a hobby. But it was not until the post-war years, and a new generation hungry for fulfilment and eager to explore the countryside and its wildlife, that birdwatching finally became a mass participation sport.
This article from WILDFOWL & WETLANDS, the journal of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, for the summer 2003
Stephen Moss is a television producer, writer and broadcaster, specialising in birds and other wildlife.
He is currently writing a social history of birdwatching, and would be interested to hear from readers with any anecdotes, stories or information which might be relevant.
