Feeling Old...

Here are a few quotes from The Birds of London (2014) by Andrew Self. See if you can work out which species they refer to:

'By the mid-1930s they were still a common and widespread breeding resident in the rural areas but had been pushed out of the inner suburbs...in December 1947 a flock of more than 40 was seen on Barnes Common...On Hampstead Heath there were five territorial males in 1954...The population began to decrease from the 1970s onwards...on Wimbledon Common they declined from 10 pairs in 1976 to just one pair by 1984 when breeding was last recorded...The closest breeding birds to central London were at Barn Hill, near Wembley, where two pairs bred in the mid-1970s...The species continued to decrease during the 1990s with some populations going into a terminal decline...At least 148 pairs/singing males were located across the London Area in 1998.'

The 2016 London Bird Report states that '...there were 54 territories/singing males...' in that year, apparently from 21 sites. I do not know how things stand right now, but I can guess.

Singing males...

It is fair to say that the song of this species is iconic, and the first time I consciously registered it was in the very early 1970s, at one of the locations mentioned above - Barn Hill, near Wembley. I must have been 11 or 12, but had no idea there were none closer to central London, or indeed of the species' wider status. To me they were simply the prize birds of Barn Hill, my nearest bit of 'countryside'.

Mostly I visited Barn Hill to fish the pond, but once I had crossed the railway footbridge and adjacent field, and passed through the line of trees which skirted the foot of the hill, the path climbed a grassy slope studded with the odd scrubby little Oak, and maybe Hawthorn. Here is where they lived. And probably you have guessed the bird by now. Yellowhammer.

According to the BTO website, Yellowhammer is experiencing a 'rapid decline'. That is putting it mildly. Basically, for every three breeding pairs back when I first recall seeing them, there is now one. Why? Again according to the BTO website, primarily the causes are 'decreased survival' and 'agricultural intensification', the two presumably not mutually exclusive.

By chance I came across some aerial shots* of Barn Hill which date from 1947...

In the very early 1970s I would appear over the railway footbridge at top left, head SE across the field, through the line of trees, then puff eagerly up the slope to the pond.

A closer view...

In 1947 the slope down from the pond to the north looks almost entirely open grassland. Twenty-odd years later there were a number of scrubby little trees.

And this is what it looks like now...

This is as close a match to the above pic as I could manage.

And zooming out a bit...

Looks quite nice I guess. No Yellowhammers though.

I last visited Barn Hill in 2017. That walk up the grassy hillside, so vivid in my memory, now passes through a dense woodland ringing with the screech of parakeets. It is part of Fryent Country Park, a dedicated nature reserve.

I am fortunate to have Yellowhammers local to me. They are a familiar sight in some places, but definitely not all. Just three territories in the Bridport recording area during 2021, and nowhere locally would I call it common. The species is slipping through our fingers...

As I began this post I wondered why I was bothering, what its point was exactly. I'm still not sure. I suppose it sometimes bothers me that we get all excited about the successes - the Spoonbills, Red Kites, Bitterns etc, etc - and the rarities which have us rushing all over the place, while so many less spectacular birds are quietly being throttled into oblivion. Am I saying we shouldn't get excited about stuff? No, not really. So what am I saying? Goodness knows...

Anyway, I do now understand why elderly birders tut and shake their heads so much, and witter on about the 'old days'.

Male Yellowhammer at Mapperton. Good choice, Mr Yellowhammer.

* Historic England Aerial Photos