This Birding Life (36 page)

I've always had a soft spot for Magpies, not least because they featured in the very first article I ever wrote for the
Guardian
, a dozen or so years ago. These splendid birds are, for most people, part of the landscape – especially if, like me, you live in a leafy suburb, packed with trees and gardens.

And packed, of course, with garden birds. For there's the rub. In the bird world, Magpies are currently vying with Sparrowhawks as public enemy number one, because of their tendency to prey on the eggs and chicks of some of our best-loved songbirds.

Since the end of the Second World War, Magpies have undergone a population boom and recolonised many areas from which they used to be absent. This is due partly to the drop in numbers of gamekeepers, who would shoot Magpies on sight and ask questions afterwards. During roughly the same period, several species of songbird have suffered dramatic declines – some, like the Song Thrush and House Sparrow, to the point at which we are seriously worried about their future. Many people have, understandably, put two and two together and made five. To them, Magpies are the evil villains responsible for our songbirds' demise.

But things are not quite as simple as they might seem at first sight. In fact, Magpies are not the culprits. Yes, they do take eggs and chicks – though even at the height of the breeding season these still only make up about a third of their diet.

Let's look at it another way. If Magpies are responsible for the decline, why did songbirds not die out centuries ago? Why are so many garden birds doing rather well? And most importantly of all, what do the species that have declined most rapidly have in common? Not that they are predated by Magpies – but that they feed for much of the year on seeds.

The seed-eaters – birds like the Tree Sparrow, Linnet and Corn Bunting – have declined more than any other group. When I was a child the bird books classified these as ‘farmland species' – though few do so now. That's because on many arable farms you would be lucky to find a spare seed in winter, let alone come across the stubble fields filled with birds that I remember from my youth.

So who is to blame for the decline in songbirds? Top of the list are farmers – at least those who embraced modern, high-intensity farming methods and took the subsidies that went along with them. They are closely followed by consumers of cheap supermarket food – who went along with an agricultural policy that left no room for the birds. Does that sound familiar? Well, that category certainly includes me – and probably you too.

In the autumn of 1926, a young man named Max Nicholson went up to Oxford. His subject was history, but his passion was birds, and he soon joined the newly formed Oxford Ornithological Society. In contrast to the hedonistic behaviour of the ‘Brideshead Set', with their endless round of parties and costume balls, the ornithologists were an earnest bunch. Instead of propping up the college bar and getting ‘hog-whimperingly drunk', they were often out from dawn to dusk making careful observations of bird behaviour.

But today, almost 80 years later, the achievements of these pioneers have lasted far longer than those of their pleasure-seeking contemporaries. In 1928 Nicholson and his fellow birdwatchers carried out the first-ever survey of a breeding bird, the Grey Heron. During the following three-quarters of a century Britain's birds have been surveyed, counted and watched more than any other comparable avifauna in the
world. We still have a lot to learn, but much of what we do know is down to the vision and lifetime's work of Max Nicholson.

Sadly, Max died last month, just over a year short of his own century. I was fortunate to meet him several times, and always felt as if I were travelling back in time. He would refer to some of the greatest figures of twentieth-century ornithology as ‘young Peter Scott' or ‘that young fellow James Fisher'. He would casually mention ‘a book I wrote in 1926' or the time he met Edward Grey — Britain's longest-serving Foreign Secretary, author of
The Charm of Birds
, and the man who coined the famous phrase: ‘The lights are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'

Max lived a full and varied life outside ornithology, too: as private secretary to Herbert Morrison, and with Churchill at the postwar peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam. He also told me of a visit to the remote islands of St Kilda, inspiring me to go and see this remarkable place for myself.

Most movingly of all, he talked of his memories of 1914, when as a ten-year old boy in Portsmouth he watched the columns of young men going off to war. As we now know, so many of them were never to return. This tragedy shaped the entire course of his life, making him determined to make up for their loss by helping to create a better world. As the father of modern conservation he certainly did his best.

In the same week as the passing of Max Nicholson, another colossus of twentieth-century ornithology also died. Guy Mountfort had packed almost as much into his 97 years. He led the first great birding expeditions to Europe, told in his inspiring series of
Portrait
books; was co-author (with Roger Peterson and Phil Hollom) of the legendary
Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe;
and set up Operation Tiger, which helped prevent the extinction of this magnificent beast.

Max Nicholson and Guy Mountfort were truly great men, who fought against the destruction of the world's wildlife and inspired succeeding generations to do so too. But for me, their most important legacy is their simple enthusiasm for watching birds. For all their work
on committees and at conferences, organising expeditions and writing books, neither Max nor Guy ever forgot one thing – that ultimately we watch birds for the joy and pleasure they give us.

As I was reading the obituaries of Max Nicholson and Guy Mountfort in this month's
Birdwatching
magazine, a brief paragraph caught my eye. It announced the death of another, less well-known figure in the birding world. Less well-known, perhaps, but just as sadly missed.

At 77 years old, Jose Antonio Valverde was a generation younger than the two British nonagenarians, but their lives were nevertheless closely linked. As a young man in the late 1950s, ‘Tono', as he was known, was the only Spanish ornithologist on Guy Mountfort's pioneering expeditions to the Coto Doñana in southern Spain – Europe's last great wilderness.

He made an immediate impression, both for his deep knowledge of local birds and his patchy command of English. On one occasion, he and James Ferguson-Lees were out horse riding when they heard a strange sound. Unsure of its identity, Ferguson-Lees asked Valverde what was making the noise. Struggling for the correct word, Valverde's face suddenly brightened, and he pronounced his verdict: ‘Adult tadpole'!

As a child, I remember reading about this adventure in the great bird photographer Eric Hosking's autobiography
An Eye for a Bird
, and wondering if I might ever get to visit the magical Coto Doñana for myself. In 1986, almost 30 years after the first expedition, I finally did – in the company of Tono Valverde.

At the time I was making a BBC television series teaching Spanish, and a colleague had tracked him down for me. He let us into his tiny
apartment, a broad smile on his kindly, suntanned face. The conversation soon turned to my interest in birds, and Valverde's eyes lit up. To my astonishment, he grabbed his car keys and announced: ‘Vamos! Let's go to Doñana!'

We left Seville in his battered car, stopping every few miles to scan the skyline with a pair of borrowed – and equally battered – binoculars. But Valverde was not happy. It was clear that intensive agriculture was ruining a unique habitat. Much of what had once been natural wetland, formed by the flooding of the Rio Guadalquivir, had been drained, ploughed and planted with crops. In an absurd irony, the authority responsible for this damage, the European Union, was simultaneously financing a project to pump water back into the damaged land.

Finally, however, we reached a crossroads, overlooking a vast area of water covered with wildfowl and wading birds. As the sun set, Valverde told me the story of how Doñana had been saved for posterity by the newly formed World Wildlife Fund. He recalled drinking a bottle of wine to celebrate, then in a minor act of eco-vandalism, throwing the bottle into the water to commemorate their victory.

As if on cue, two Greylag Geese and two Greater Flamingos flew past in formation across the glowing sky. Valverde watched them pass and said in a quiet voice: ‘Geese and flamingos. North meets south. That is why this place is so special.' Later, he presented me with an inscribed copy of his book on the Coto Doñana, which I still treasure to this day.

The following year, I was in Seville once again and received a message from Valverde inviting me to go with him to look for vulture nests in the Andalusian mountains. The birth of my first son was imminent, however, and I had to decline his offer and return home to England. I greatly regret that I never went birding with Tono Valverde again.