Should our favourite bird be an official national icon?

A Robin perched on the handle of a garden fork

Some 88 of the world’s 195 nations have an officially designated national bird. Among them are 17 European states, of which seven have chosen birds of prey — White-tailed Eagle for Poland, Eastern Imperial Eagle for Serbia, Golden Eagle for Albania and Romania, Common Kestrel for Belgium, Saker Falcon for Hungary and Gyrfalcon for Iceland. Other countries have picked a variety of species ranging from the tiny Goldcrest for tiny Luxembourg to the White Stork for Lithuania and the Mute Swan for Denmark.

But the United Kingdom does not have an official national bird, and nor do any of its four constituent nations, although unofficial votes have chosen the Golden Eagle for Scotland,  the Red Kite for Wales and the Eurasian Oystercatcher for Northern Ireland. 

Official national status for the Golden Eagle has actually been refused in Scotland. In December 2013, RSPB Scotland petitioned the Scottish Government to formally declare the Golden Eagle as the national bird of Scotland. But after more than 15 months’ deliberation, the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee announced that it was “not persuaded” that a case had been made.

If the UK government could be induced to earmark a bird as a national symbol — either for Britain as a whole or for England alone — the only serious contender in my opinion is the European Robin. This delightful garden songbird can be found throughout the UK and has been an unofficial national icon since 1960, when it was voted Britain’s favourite bird in a poll in The Times. Since then it has triumphed in further informal polls. 

In 2015 David Lindo, the self-styled “Urban Birder”, organised an online poll in which more than 200,000 people took part. Despite Lindo’s efforts to influence the vote by beating the drum for the Blackbird, the Robin was again crowned winner, taking 34 per cent of the vote, with Barn Owl in second place (12 per cent) and Blackbird third (11 per cent). 

And now the RSPB has conducted a new poll, in which more than 3,700 readers of its Notes on Nature answered a call to name their favourite bird. And guess what? The Robin again prevailed, with the rest of the top ten occupied by Wren, Kingfisher, Long-tailed Tit, Goldfinch, Puffin, Blackbird, Nuthatch, Red Kite and Barn Owl, in that order.  

A clear reason for the Robin’s popularity in Britain is its reputation as the gardener’s friend. Robins in the British Isles are relatively unafraid of people and are drawn to gardening activities that disturb earthworms and other invertebrates — often using garden equipment as perches from which to follow the gardener’s activities. We also enjoy them because of their attractive plumage, their lively character and their delightful year-round song. 

Things are different in Continental Europe, where the Robin — like most other small birds — has for centuries been hunted and killed. It therefore tends to be a wary woodland bird rather than the bold bird of parks and gardens for which we Brits have a soft spot. 

I don’t really know why any nation actually needs an official national bird, but If anyone starts a petition to have the European Robin formally given that honour in the UK (or in England, at least), I shall be happy to add my signature.

Four pairs of warblers — and one newcomer

When I began birding at the Welsh Harp in north-west London some 30 years ago, the site boasted eight species of breeding warbler, all of which were summer visitors to the site. I liked to divide them into four pairs — two pairs that have songs similar to the untrained ear but can be distinguished by their appearance (if you manage to see them) and two pairs that look similar but have markedly different songs.

My first pair are Reed Warbler and Sedge Warbler. Both are members of the wetland-loving genus Acrocephalus and they have similar long, chattering songs. But the Reed Warbler is mainly plain brown, whereas the Sedge Warbler has streaky plumage with a creamy stripe above the eye.

My second pair are Blackcap and Garden Warbler. These Sylvia warblers are found in woodland and scrub and have a similar rich, bubbly and flutey song. But Blackcap are predominantly grey with a black or brown skullcap, whereas Garden Warbler are noticeable only for having no noticeable features, being soft brown all over, with paler underparts.

My third pair are Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. At first glance these leaf warblers look much the same, apart from leg colour, but their song is completely different. The Chiffchaff chants its name — “chiff chaff chiff chiff chaff” — while the Willow Warbler offers a brief melodic song that ends with a delightful descending trill.

My final pair are Common Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat. These scrub warblers are also fairly similar in appearance. However, the former has a raspy and jerky song, often delivered from an obvious perch or in flight, while the latter usually sings from cover, with a quiet scratchy warble followed by a louder machine-gun trill.

But since I devised my warbler classification, things have changed at the Welsh Harp. Sadly, Willow Warbler is no longer in the picture. It has not bred here since 2006 and now can only be heard singing during a few weeks in spring when birds stop off briefly before moving on to breed elsewhere.

On the plus side, the Welsh Harp can now boast a ninth warbler that, unlike the eight listed above, is a resident rather than just a summer visitor. This newcomer is Cetti’s Warbler, a species that was unknown in Britain until it invaded Kent in the mid-1960s, since when it has spread to waterside haunts across England and Wales. In the 20th century its only occurrence at the Welsh Harp was a singing male heard briefly in 1990, but it has now become established here, with several pairs breeding every year.

However, you will be lucky to spot a Cetti’s Warbler, since it is even more reclusive than most other warblers. Its distinctive song — loud, explosive and short — can be heard all year round, but it delivers its song from deep among thick shrubbery. Your best chance of glimpsing it is immediately after it has sung, when you may spot it flying off to its next hidden song perch.

New support for an iconic water-bird

The raft positioned near the Cook Oak Lane footbridge, photographed in January 2023  

Four nest rafts have recently been installed at my local birding patch — north-west London’s Brent Reservoir (a.k.a. the Welsh Harp) — to support the lake’s most iconic waterbird, the Great Crested Grebe.

The Great Crested Grebe was almost wiped out in Britain in the late 19th century because of a fashion for using its feathers in millinery and its pelt as a substitute for animal furs in boas and muffs. Campaigns against these trades led to bird protection legislation that ultimately saw the population begin to recover, after dropping to as few as 32 breeding pairs nationally. 

In the early 20th century, the Welsh Harp became an important site in the revival of the species, and its presence in significant numbers was a major factor in the reservoir’s designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1950. The grebe is fittingly featured on the logos of both the Welsh Harp Conservation Group and the Friends of the Welsh Harp. 

Because grebes have difficulty moving on land, they usually build their nests close to the water’s edge and barely above water level, which leaves them susceptible to flooding if the water level should fluctuate. Unfortunately, heavy rain frequently leads to a rise in Brent Reservoir’s water level that can overwhelm a grebe’s nest, and the bird’s breeding record has suffered over recent years after peaking at about 50 breeding pairs in 1991. As a regular visitor to the Welsh Harp I have on many occasions witnessed the destruction of nests by flooding.

However, a floating nest site is clearly exempt from the risk of inundation, and the new rafts — developed by Biomatrix Water and installed by the Canal & River Trust — are designed to improve the bird’s breeding success in various other ways too. The modular design provides each raft with a central opening that allows grebes to access the nest site from below the water surface. Tailored vegetation will shield the birds and their nests from potential predators. And a low wire fence around the edge of each raft will prevent other waterbirds from clambering aboard and disturbing the grebes.

A wildlife bonus is that the rafts should also help improve the reservoir’s fish stocks, since the planted vegetation will produce a subsurface forest of roots to provide shelter and feeding grounds for fish. And this micro-wilderness of submerged roots will also create an ideal habitat for micro-organisms that help to purify the water.

Three of the four rafts have been moored in secluded areas of the reservoir, but one has been positioned within view of the Cool Oak Lane footbridge, as a public amenity. The hope is that being able to view this raft will encourage more of the local population to develop an interest in the conservation of the Welsh Harp’s remarkable wildlife. 

With fingers crossed, I look forward to the coming spring to find out whether the reservoir’s grebes will welcome this innovation.

A home visit from an inquisitive flyer

Yes, yes, OK — this is supposed to be a birding blog, but I am happy to deviate from the subject because most bird enthusiasts have at least a passing interest in other airborne beasties, be they bats, butterflies, bumblebees, beetles, bee-flies or bugs — or even flying minibeasts with names that don’t begin with the letter B. And so I have no hesitation in posting an account of an encounter not with a bird but with an intriguing flying insect (with no “b” anywhere in its name). 

My fuzzy iPhone photo of our Southern Hawker taking a close look at me

On a recent warm evening my wife, our daughter and I were sitting in our lounge when a Southern Hawker dragonfly flew in through the wide open French windows. After completing a lap of the room, it flew out to patrol the patio. It did this several times, stopping off now and then to hover and take a good look at me while I attempted to photograph it. 

Such behaviour is not unusual for the Southern Hawker. Unlike most dragonflies, it often hunt well away from water and it is also notoriously inquisitive and may approach people and hover minaciously in front of them before resuming its patrol of its chosen territory.

We have about three dozen species of dragonfly in the UK and a third of them are fast-flying hawkers. The Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) is not one of the rarest. It can be found throughout England and Wales and is gradually spreading into Scotland. It is usually on the wing from the end of June into October, feeding on flying insects such as flies, mosquitoes and midges, which it catches mid-air using its expert flying skills and its incredible eyesight. 

Hottentot or not?

Blue-billed Teal (Photo credit: nik.borrow on VisualHunt)

An exotic small duck turned up recently at my local wetland birding spot. Its distinctive blue bill, black cap, buff cheeks and mottled breast soon led to its identification as a Hottentot Teal— a southern African species that sometimes appears in the wild in the UK as a fugitive from a wildfowl collection. 

What makes the species particularly notable is the ghastly word “Hottentot”, which the international birding community has only recently recognised as repugnant. In a 2021 update of its master list of bird names, the International Ornithological Congress belatedly changed its approved English vernacular name for the species to Blue-billed Teal on the ground that the label Hottentot has become offensive. 

It is wrong to think that “Hottentot” has only recently become objectionable, since the word has been repulsive for 350 years. It was coined cynically in the late 17th century by Dutch settlers in Southern Africa to mock the rhythms and sounds of indigenous languages that include features such as click consonants. The word soon became a disparaging catch-all term not just for these languages but also for all the cultures (often grouped together as the Khoisan) that spoke them, as opposed to those who spoke the Bantu tongues that sound less strange to prejudiced Europeans.

The British birding community should now fully embrace the name Blue-billed Teal rather than persisting with Hottentot Teal. And our European counterparts need to take a look at their own names for this species, since the element “hottentot” still appears in the bird’s vernacular name in many European languages. 

Equally objectionable, but perhaps more difficult to change, is the bird’s scientific binomial Spatula hottentota. It appears that avian taxonomists will readily alter the first element of a binomial when they choose to transfer a species to a different genus — as they did some years ago when moving our little dabbling duck from the Anas genus to the Spatula genus — but they are reluctant to change the second element of any binomial because rigid practice dictates that this should be determined by the original description of the type specimen. 

However, this excuse is ridiculous so far as the Blue-billed Teal is concerned because it has an original description did that not use hottentota. The species was first described by the English naturalist William John Burrell in 1822, when it was given the scientific name Anas punctata (meaning “spotted duck”). This binomial remained in common use well into the 20th century, even though in 1838 the bird was for some unexplained reason renamed Anas hottentota by another English naturalist, Thomas Campbell Eyton. 

Avian taxonomists seem to be a law unto themselves, but I can see no logical reason why our poor little quacker — an innocent victim of narrow-minded racism — should not be redesignated as Spatula punctata rather than continuing to be tarnished by the appellation S hottentota.

Spuggies and spadges

In his Nature Notes column in The Times of 27 April 2022, Jonathan Tulloch wrote that while stranded on Thirsk station after a train cancellation he was cheered by the sight of sparrows flying into the eaves of the waiting room with bills full of nesting materials. 

Male House Sparrow carrying nesting material
(Photo credit: hedera.baltica on Visualhunt)

The eaves of buildings have long been favoured nesting sites for the House Sparrow, and it may be that a gradual loss of such sites over the years is one factor in the sparrow’s declining UK population. In my own neck of the woods (north-west London) I still see and hear them around older council estates but not in posher areas with well-maintained private houses or among the many grisly new-build blocks of tenement flats.

The Nature Notes column also referred to the house sparrow as a “spuggie”. This attracted a letter the following day from someone who as a child in Lancashire had known sparrows as “spadges” and wondered whether there were any other regional names for these birds. 

In fact, spuggie and spadge are just two of many UK regional names for the House Sparrow. Among them are spadger, spadgick, spadgick, spadgie, spadgy, spaggy, sparr, sparra, sparrer, speug, spidgy, spoggy, sprig, sprog, sproggy, sproug, sprougie, sprug, spudge, spudger, spudguck, spudgy, spug, spuggy, spur, spurdie, spurg, spurgie, spurgy, spurrock — and that’s just the names beginning “sp”! And in North America you can also find spatzie and spotsy, derived from the German Spatz.

And, to get away from names beginning “sp”, the House Sparrow’s habit of nesting in eaves gives rise to another delightful regional name — Eaves Sparrow. It may also still sometimes be referred to as Easing Sparrow, “easing” being a contraction of the obsolete “eavesing”, a synonym for “eaves”.

Other local names include Thatch Sparrow or Thack Sparrow, because roofs made of thatch (or thack) have also long provided nesting opportunities for sparrows.  

I was amused to see that the Times letter-writer had the forename Philip, because Philip/Phillip is itself a centuries-old name for the House Sparrow, perhaps in imitation of its chirruping call. A notable use of this name is in the poem “The Book of Phillip Sparrow” by the Tudor poet John Skelton (1460–1529).  

And to conclude, the House Sparrow’s scientific name is fittingly Passer domesticus — appropriate because Latin passer means a sparrow (or other small bird) and domesticus means “belonging to the house”.

Why an exotic duck is causing a buzz

Female Ruddy Shelduck at Brent Reservoir, 8 August 2021
(© Barry Wilson 2021 —image retrieved from the London Bird Club wiki)

What makes a bird “British”? The authoritative list of British species is maintained by the British Ornithologists’ Union, which defines British birds as those that have occurred naturally in Britain at least once or have developed self-sustaining British populations after artificial introduction.

One bird that has an intriguing relationship with the British List is the Ruddy Shelduck, a species mainly found in Central Asia. It is on the BOU’s British List solely because of a single incident in autumn 1892, when an unprecedented irruption brought a large number into north-west Europe, with about 60 making it as far as Britain and a few even reaching Iceland and Greenland. 

Although there have been many subsequent British sightings, none has been accepted as appropriate for the British List because, like many other non-native waterfowl, the Ruddy Shelduck is often found in captive collections, from which escapes are not unusual. 

Jailbreaks occur particularly after the summer moult, when careless keepers fail to round up all the internees to clip their new flight feathers. Although absconding birds have occasionally bred in England, they have not developed the self-sustaining wild population that would put the species firmly on the British List.

However, the BOU records committee (BOURC) is now reviewing the status of the species on the basis that a growing number of sightings may be of birds originating from naturalised populations on the near continent and that birds straying into Britain from such wild populations should be accepted onto the British List.

Over the past few decades, a self-sustaining feral population of Ruddy Shelduck has evolved in southern Germany and Switzerland. Every summer many of these birds (probably more than 2,000 in 2021) head for protected wetlands in The Netherland to moult between June and August. They do so because they need a site with a reliable food supply and few predators, since they are flightless and vulnerable for a while during the moult.

Evidence now suggests that birds from this continental population regularly reach Britain. Around the time of the Dutch jaunt there are now many records from eastern England, particularly along the coast, whereas if British sightings related only to escapes one might expect reports to be spread more evenly across the country and throughout the year. 

Partly because the BOU may recategorise the species, a female Ruddy Shelduck that recently turned up at north-west London’s Brent Reservoir (a.k.a. “The Welsh Harp”) has attracted some interest among birders. Over recent years the species has occasionally been reported in the London area, including a pair seen now and then at various West London wetland sites over the past three year. But these birds have always been assumed to be escapes. However, Brent Reservoir’s visitor (first seen on 5 August 2021 and still present as I write three weeks later) shows signs of being a continental tourist (or asylum-seeker?) rather than a native fence-jumper. 

Why do I suggest that? First, because the bird arrived at a felicitous time of year (see above); secondly, because it does not have the identifying leg ring(s) one might expect on a pre-owned menagerie bird; and thirdly, because it is wary, tending to forage under the willows that overhang the reservoir’s fringes rather than join the semi-tame local waterfowl to gorge on the cheap sliced bread and custard creams thrown at them by local residents.

We will never be sure of the bird’s pedigree, but birders who have seen it may be awaiting the outcome of the BOURC deliberations so that they can decide for themselves whether to add it to their personal British lists.

A bird-eating tortoise is no surprise

Late summer is known as the silly season, when the mass media focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories. My own choice of newspaper is The Times, which is usually reliable but can also get caught up in silly season stories. 

A news item on 24 August 2021 was headed “Killer tortoise devours bird to leave scientists shellshocked”. The first paragraph claimed: “A killer tortoise has been observed for the first time, with scientists ‘horrified and amazed’ to see the creature previously thought to be a strict herbivore attack and devour a baby bird”.

Linked to the story is a video filmed on Fregate Island in the Seychelles, which is described as “the first documented evidence of a tortoise going in for the kill”. It shows an Aldabra giant tortoise slowly stalking, and apparently killing, a Lesser Noddy tern chick.

The article goes on to claim that the video undermines a general assumption that Seychelles giant tortoises are strict herbivores. But there is no such general assumption. Although mainly herbivorous, giant tortoises have long been known to munch on invertebrates such as snails and also to snack on vertebrate carrion — including dead members of their own species. So it is surely no surprise that a defenceless Noddy nestling has become a reptilian lunch. 

Most terns nest on the ground, where the adults do their best to protect their eggs and chicks from predators. But the Lesser Noddy nests in trees and, according to The Times article, Fregate Island has 265,000 noddies that “leave the ground littered with . . . chicks that have fallen from their nests”. 

So it is surely no surprise that an opportunistic — and omnivorous — tortoise should take advantage of this protein-rich windfall. Indeed, The Times quotes scientists as saying that “this was highly unlikely to have been an isolated incident”. 

The flightless chick in the video would presumably not have survived for long anyway, so it might as well add a bit of variety to a testudinid’s otherwise boring diet of grass and leaves.

Why do “scaly-nostrilled” flats overlook my local reservoir?

Back in 1950, north-west London’s Brent Reservoir (also known as the Welsh Harp) was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its importance as a habitat for waterbirds, and particularly as a breeding site for the Great Crested Grebe. 

Seventy years later, a run-down housing estate overlooking the reservoir’s northern arm is being replaced by a modern development that has been given the name “Hendon Waterside”. Because the new development’s title emphasises its lakeside position, it might seem appropriate for its streets and properties to be given names relevant to the reservoir’s significant aquatic wildlife. However, the site’s developer, Barratt London, has instead made the most bizarre selection of names.

Although all the chosen names are bird-related, most have no relevance whatsoever to the local avian fauna. Among the seemingly random choices is Shearwater Drive, even though no shearwater — an oceanic bird — has ever been seen at Brent Reservoir. Another chosen name is Eider Apartments, although the reservoir’s only record of Eider — a sea duck — is of a couple of immature birds spotted 60 years ago. And the strange selection of names even includes Meadowlark House — celebrating a North American bird that (as far as I know) has never been encountered on this side of the Atlantic.

But by far the most ludicrous name choice is “Pomarine Apartments”.

Few people will have come across the adjective “pomarine” because it has only ever been used in the name of a single rare species of seabird, the Pomarine Skua (Stercorarius pomarinus). And for Barratt London it was certainly a crazy choice of name because — according to the few dictionaries that include it — the word means “having the nostril partially covered by a horny scale”. Like the alternative and even rarer adjective “pomatorhine”, it derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek words for lid (pōma, pōmat-) and nose or nostril (rhis, rhin-). 

Personally I would not wish to live in a flat that has been labelled with an adjective that means “scaly-nostrilled”.

Could you ever spot a Pomarine Skua in West Hendon? Extremely unlikely. A few are seen off the UK’s coasts in spring and autumn on their way between their breeding sites in the Arctic and their wintering grounds off West Africa, but they are very rarely encountered inland. In this century only a handful have been recorded in the London area — most recently a bird seen over the Thames at Rainham six years ago. 

There has only ever been one report of a Pomarine Skua at Brent Reservoir, and that was nearly 180 years ago, soon after the reservoir was built. An early issue of a monthly journal called The Zoologist, founded in 1843, included a mention of an immature bird at the reservoir on an unknown date. The Welsh Harp’s dedicated birdwatching group — the Brent Birders — would be ecstatic if a “Pom” was ever to appear at the reservoir again.

Protecting Red Grouse(s) in the Thames Estuary?

A still from the Lower Thames Crossing’s YouTube video, showing six vertebrate species that have allegedly been “encountered and safeguarded”

I have some complaints — grouses, if you like — about Highways England’s proposal for a Lower Thames Crossing, a few miles downriver from the existing Dartford Crossing.

The autumn 2020 issue of the Lower Thames Crossing “community video newsletter” devotes just 42 seconds to the ecological surveys that are required by law for any such project. As transcribed in subtitles, the presenter proclaims:

“Since 2017 our site teams have spent over 46,000 hours undertaking ecology surveys in areas along the proposed route to identify and protect local wildlife species and environmentally sensitive locations such as ancient woodland. So far, we’ve encountered and safeguarded common lizards, slow worms, badgers, ground nesting birds such as Sky Larks, Red Legged Partridges and Red Grouses. As part of our environmental mitigation measures, we’ve put in place an exclusion zone area of 136,000 square metres to protect these wildlife species, as well as Ancient Semi Natural Woodland and roots.” 

If this brief statement is anything to go by, there are serious concerns about the integrity of the 46,000 hours of ecology survey. Most astounding is the reference to safeguarding “Red Grouses”. 

“Red Grouses”? The Red Grouse is a bird of heather-clad upland moors and, if am not mistaken, its nearest habitats to the Thames Estuary are more than 120 miles away, and at altitude, in areas such as the Derbyshire Peak District, the Staffordshire Moorlands and Wales’s Brecon Beacons. 

Furthermore, how can Highways England claim to have safeguarded species that it can’t even spell correctly? It’s Skylark, not Sky Lark; it’s Red-legged Partridge, not Red Legged Partridges; and the plural of Grouse is Grouse, not Grouses. 

The difference between Skylark and Sky Lark may seem trivial, but in these days of computer databases an automated cataloguing system may recognise the officially approved Skylark but not Sky Lark. (Incidentally, a Google search offers 25,000,000 results for “skylark” but only 1.6% of that number for Highways England’s “sky lark”.)

The same consideration applies to Red-legged Partridge vs Red Legged Partridge. Furthermore, the correct name clearly means a partridge with red legs, whereas “Red Legged Partridge” seems to imply a partridge that is red and has legs. 

As for “Grouses”, in all my many years I have never once read or heard this bird pluralised with an added “s”. An “s” should only be added when grouse is used as a synonym for complaint. 

Another of my grouses concerns the video’s boast that “we’ve put in place an exclusion zone area of 136,000 square metres to protect these wildlife species”. That six-figure area may at first glance seem impressive, but 136,000 square metres is actually just 13.6 hectares, which in old money is 33.6 acres or a 20th of a square mile, or (to use a popular reference standard) smaller than 20 football pitches. In other words, the exclusion zone is wholly insignificant in comparison with the huge areas of wildlife habitat that would disappear under the proposed crossing’s approach roads and associated infrastructure.

I think that’s enough of a rant for now. And please don’t get me started on whatever “as well as Ancient Semi Natural Woodland and roots” is supposed to mean.