Egg-collecting was a way into birdwatching for more than a few older birders, writes Michael Aldous…
I collected bird’s eggs. All the boys did. Between the ages of about 9 to 12, it was a regular seasonal activity for us council house boys growing up in the Surrey edge of South London in the early 1960s.
There was the football season in winter, then ‘nesting’ in spring and early summer. There was the marbles season around May, then the cricket season, followed by the apple scrumping season in September and the conker season in October. I recall I had one which saw off five opponents. I called it William (William the Conker). We must have been studying the Norman Conquest at the time. That was followed by the ‘Penny for the Guy’ and the fireworks season (you don’t want to know what we got up to with bangers), and then the run up to Christmas, with football resuming the cycle.
So, our outdoor lifestyle had a rhythm that was inherited from previous generations and was entirely natural to us. ‘Nesting’ was big news for a couple of months or so. Rival groups of boys competed against each other to find bird’s nests and collect eggs, which were blown using blackthorn spikes and then kept in old sweet or biscuit tins lined with our mother’s discarded nylons.
Strangely, we knew little about the birds themselves, and were not really bothered. It was the thrill and challenge of the hunt that was the big deal. We were guided by the ‘Observers Book of Bird’s Eggs’, and we soon learned to tell the difference between the inside of Blackbird and Song Thrush nests when our small hands reached into nest cups awkwardly positioned within the prickly interiors of bushes. We knew that House Sparrows eggs could be found under the eaves of houses, and similarly Starling eggs. Woodpigeon and Swallow nests were easy, and Robins often nested in odd places. Wrens built little grassy domed nests, but tits were more problematic given their disposition for nesting inside trees and stumps. We did admire Chaffinch nests for their careful construction, and learned that Magpie nests had twiggy roofs under which eggs lurked, often alongside odd shiny things like milk bottle tops.
All this and more information was subconsciously absorbed in our quest for eggs. I well recall the dazzling site of four pristine bright blue Dunnock (we called them Hedge Sparrows) eggs in a neat little nest in one of the privet hedges that defined the boundaries of our council houses, and nearly came to grief when my sterling efforts to reach a Carrion Crow nest in the very top of a tall tree coincided with the squawking return of the parent bird. I don’t know which of us was more surprised by the other, but I very nearly lost my grip.
All this childhood activity planted seeds of interest which remained dormant for some time and disappeared during teenage years, until I encountered work colleagues who enjoyed looking for birds. By now I was beginning to travel extensively, walking and camping with friends in the countryside, and observing landscape and natural history, in particular birds, was a natural adjunct to all that. I bought a pair of Zeiss Jena 8x30 binoculars and the die was cast.
So I became a birdwatcher. I am not a ‘birder’, nor a ‘twitcher’, and I do not ‘go birding’. I know nothing about ‘dipping’ or ‘megas’. My friends and I find the modern jargon associated with our pastime rather contrived and nerdy. I do, however, keep lists and dates of what I see, and normally manage to comfortably contact around 160 different species in the UK each year, without desperately trying to achieve the ‘holy grail’ of 200.
For years I have used my acquired skills by undertaking census work for the BTO, doing my little bit for the advancement of knowledge about British birds. I write nature essays, based on wildlife walks near my Suffolk Coastal home, laced where appropriate with relevant historical and literary references. It keeps me amused.
I do not now collect bird’s eggs and have not done so for more than 60 years. I would not of course condone doing so today, and I accordingly free my wife from the obligation to provide me with unwanted tights! I do, however, recognise with hindsight the valuable portal that innocent boyhood activity provided on my journey to becoming the enthusiastic amateur naturalist that I am today.
Michael Aldous is a retired Government Planning Inspector. He lives near the Suffolk coast where he observes, records and writes about its diverse wildlife, particularly its birds. He also writes short stories for children, and undertakes voluntary bird census work for the British Trust for Ornithology