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ID: 156911
Title: Birds in Town and Village
Author: William Henry Hudson
Narrator: Neville Jason
Format: Unabridged
Length: 07:24:00
Language: English
Release date: 12-04-12
Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
Genres: Non-Fiction, Science & Technology, Animals & Nature, Hobbies & Games
Summary:
Featured large on TV and radio, and loved by the nation, naturalists have become prominent figures in the media. Wearing their knowledge lightly, it is their enthusiasm; their evident love of nature which is their principal message, and which is hugely infectious.
Had he been around at this time, William Henry Hudson would have undoubtedly been in the foreground of media prominence, for he too coupled extensive knowledge, born of decades of observing nature in the field, with a bottomless love for all feathered kind. He is now probably only known to the older generation of the bird enthusiasts, which is understandable.
There is a highly active and imaginative group of bird writers and commentators producing books by the score, far beyond the Collins Complete Guide to British Birds or the RSPB Guide to Birdwatching.
Simon Barnes's quirky books on birds include A Bad Birdwatcher's Companion, which is available on Naxos AudioBooks, and both entertaining and informative it certainly is. There are also books by Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and many others.
In a way, W.H. Hudson was the precursor of them all, a pioneer in his field. He loved birds and he watched them all the time, paying minute attention to their habits, their characters and their activities. His books are not dry field guides dedicated to the identification of our island species, but more a celebration of their habits and social lives. He was an early member of the fledgling Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Chairman of the committee in 1894.
The RSPB was first formed in 1889 by a group of women fired by a specific common purpose. As the RSPB recounts in its history:
In its earliest days the Society consisted entirely of women who were moved by the emotional appeal of the plight of young birds left to starve in the nest after their parents had been shot for their plumes. The rules of the Society were simple:
That Members shall discourage the wanton destruction of Birds, and interest themselves generally in their protection
That Lady-Members shall refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for purposes of food, the ostrich only excepted.
Through his writing and his energy, W.H. Hudson played a key role in the establishment of the RSPB, which now has more than a million members in the UK, more than 20,000 active volunteers and some 200 nature reserves of all different kinds in the UK. Such is its strength that it is also playing an important role in restoring rainforests in Africa and Asia, monitoring threatened albatrosses in the southern oceans and running international schemes to track birds during their migrations.
Now, of course, bird tracking is a hi- tech activity. Thousands of sponsors were able to track five cuckoos: Martin, Lyster, Clement, Chris and Kasper, as they flew across the English Channel, across Europe and over Spain to Africa. Each bird, carrying a solar-powered tracker, had its own blog, and thousands of sponsors followed their birds on the web. They suffered agonies of concern as first one, then another, disappeared from the GPS tracker, only for their signals to re-emerge from behind a mountain, showing they were still flying determinedly on.
They all reached their destination by different routes and arrived at different times. They enjoyed the sunshine in their migration grounds. Then came the time for the return, but alas only two (Lyster and Chris) made it back.
