Watching Birds

169 Pages·2010·3.77 MB·English

by  James Fisher

WATCHING BIRDS
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WATCHING
BIRDS
by JAMES FISHER
Revised edition by
JIM FLEGG
With drawings by Crispin Fisher
9=tsp;t1<d Woodpecker
T. & A. D. POYSER
Berkhamsted
First published 1974 by T & AD Poyser Ltd
Print-on-demand and digital editions published 2010 by T & AD Poyser,
an imprint of A&C Black Publishers Ltd, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
Copyright © 1974 by T & AD Poyser
ISBN (print) 978-1-4081-3866-3
ISBN (epub) 978-1-4081-3867-0
ISBN (e-pdf) 978-1-4081-3865-6
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in
any form or by any means – photographic, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval systems – without
permission of the publishers.
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Contents
From the Preface to the 1940 edition 9
Preface to the 1974 edition 11
Note on the illustrations 12
Introducing the birdwatcher to the bird 13
2 Arranging the birds 35
3 The tools of bird watching 46
4 Migration 58
5 Where birds live 78
6 The numbers of birds 88
7 Disappearance and defiance 115
8 How birds recognise one another 127
9 Territory, courtship and the breeding cycle 133
10 What you can do 151
Index 157
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List of plates
Puffin with coloured plastic identity ring
2 Gannet colony on Grassholm, off Pembroke coast
3 Mist nets in a woodland clearing
4 A chardonneret garden trap
5 Extracting a bird from the mist net
6 Holding the bird correctly
7 Applying the ring with special pliers
8 Wedge-shaped nestbox for Treecreepers
9 Open-fronted boxes for Pied Wagtails
10 A male Robin attacking a stuffed bird
11 Blowing aside the feathers to reveal a female Hawfinch's
brood patch
12 Ringed Plover settling on eggs
13 Bird rings of several sizes
14 Common Tern chicks camouflaged
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From the Preface to the 1940 edition
Some people might consider an apology necessary for the appearance
of a book about birds at a time when Britain is fighting for its own and
many other lives. I make no such apology. Birds are part of the heritage
we are fighting for. After this war ordinary people are going to have a
better time than they have had; they are going to get about more; they
will have time to rest from their tremendous tasks; many will get the op-
portunity, hitherto sought in vain, of watching wild creatures and
making discoveries about them. It is for these men and women, and not
for the privileged few to whom ornithology has been an indulgence, that
I have written this little book.
I shall be very pleased if anybody who reads it becomes interested in
birds.
Oundle, November 1940 JAMES FISHER