Reading RSPB Group

ON February 13 the Reading RSPB Group was delighted to welcome Peter Holden for a talk entitled “Inspired by birds”.

This would be a fitting description of Peter’s own life, having worked for the RSPB for 40 years, spearheading the development of the Young Ornithologists Club, writing nine books and being made an MBE for services to wildlife.

The subject of the talk was originally prompted by a visit to Peru where it is possible to watch from the rim of a deep canyon as majestic Andean condors rise almost to within touching distance when the sun strikes the rocks below.

This spectacle attracted about 300 people of all ages and nationalities, very few of them bird-watchers, who had come from far and wide, arriving before dawn just to witness a magnificent wildlife spectacle.

This launched Peter on a wide-ranging exploration of how birds have inspired
religious iconography, decorative arts and music.

Starting in ancient Egypt, he took us through sculptures, hieroglyphs and papyrus, juxtaposing these with images of the actual birds which inspired the artwork.

We may be familiar with statues of the falcon god Horus but when seen side by side with a photograph of a peregrine falcon proudly perched on a cathedral spire we can immediately see that Horus was inspired by the living world.

Depictions of the female oracles at Delphi in classical Greece always showed them accompanied by a bird that bears a striking resemblance to a blue rock thrush.

There were very accurate depictions of pheasants and rock partridges in Roman mosaics.

Some bird-inspired art, however, reflects the misconceptions of the day. One medieval painting shows barnacle geese hanging from seaweed under water, which reflects the mistaken belief that these birds hatched from the barnacles which cling to rocks and seaweed.

Such misconceptions continued into the 17th and 18th centuries.

Rembrandt sketched birds of paradise without any feet because he had only seen the skins of dead birds which, for some reason, always had their feet removed by collectors before they were sent back to Europe.

Moving on to more recent times, Peter described the growing move to extremely accurate portrayals of birds by artists such as Thomas Bewick and Audubon, known for his exquisite portraits of birds in their habitat and showing their behaviour.

The evening ended with birds in music, with Handel’s The Cuckoo and The Nightingale and the last movement of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, which echoes the call of the whooper swan, with which he must have been very familiar.

The scope of Peter’s research was astonishing and we were delighted to hear that, having stopped at the 18th century, there is a second part to the talk which we look forward to hearing on another occasion.

On Sunday, February 18 the group had a morning walk round College Lake, a Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust reserve just north of Tring.

The site is an old chalk quarry that now forms two lakes with areas of grassland and scrub.

Large numbers of ducks were present, most numerous were tufted ducks and shoveler with smaller numbers of teal, pochard, wigeon and gadwall.

Two oystercatchers had arrived that morning as had a redshank, so many local birders had popped in to see them.

We were pleased to see a flock of siskins feeding in alders by the edge of the lake as well as a small group of linnets in the fields at the far side of the reserve. At the end of the walk we enjoyed a visit to the excellent café. In total we recorded 37 species of bird.

On Tuesday, February 20 nine members of the group met at the Warburg BBOWT reserve, near Bix.

The feeders by the car park turned out to be the best part of the reserve with a pair of marsh tits joining the usual blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, long-tailed tits and coal tits.

We enjoyed seeing the marsh tits at close range as they can be difficult to see well normally.

We took to the trails round the reserve but found that two of the sections of the main trail were shut, which was a shame as it limited the areas we could visit.

We saw another marsh tit feeding on the ground on a track we walked along and a raven flew over with its unmistakable cronking call.

Although a shorter walk than planned, it was very enjoyable with 23 species of bird recorded.

Forthcoming talks and trips are as follow:

March 12 — Jonathan Forgham will talk about birding on the Polish Baltic coast.

April 9 — Award-winning photographer Tom Way will talk on “Exciting wildlife around the world”.

May 14 — Annual meeting followed by a talk from Martin Randall, RSPB operations director for central and eastern England.

March 17 — Minibus trip to Blashford Lakes in Hampshire, a visit postponed from February.

March 19 — Morning walk at Paice’s Wood, near Aldermaston.

April 16 — Walk through Bowdown Woods, near Greenham Common.

April 21 — Minibus trip to RSPB Pulborough Brooks.

All indoor meetings are held in Pangbourne village hall starting at 8pm. Visitors are very welcome. There is an entrance fee of £5 for non-members, juniors half price. New members are always welcome with annual membership set at a modest £15 (£10 for juniors).

For more information, visit group.rspb.org.uk/
reading

Judith Clark