A History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects

This detail from a 1920 stained glass window in Selbourne church, created and installed by G. Gascoigne and Son, shows a few of the 82 species mentioned in White’s letters, all of which are incorporated into the design.

A batch of letters written by a country clergyman to noted zoologists Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington has remained a classic nature book since it was first published in 1789. An outstanding amateur ornithologist, the author, Gilbert White, can also be seen as the first ‘patch birder’, observing the changes and details of his parish and making many discoveries along the way.

After a 12-year clerical career in southern England and The Midlands, White inherited his father’s house in Selborne, Hampshire, where he took charge of the parish as curate. A keen gardener, his meticulous and methodical record-keeping of the annual weather, temperature and crops he planted soon spread into a general but deep curiosity about the natural world in his local area.

He began a correspondence with two other learned gentlemen, Pennant (an eminent zoologist) and Barrington (barrister and Fellow of the Royal Society), exchanging opinions about the plants and animals around them, drawn – unusually for the time – from observations in life rather than impressions gleaned from specimens, as biologists were then generally wont to do.

These letters – erudite, insightful and well-written – were published in book form in 1789 as The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, and underline White’s appreciation of the inter-connectedness of all living things, as well as his sharp eye as a field observer. He is often mentioned as the first ecologist, and with the archive of his continuous empirical data as well as his philosophical and observational musings, this opinion is hard to refute.

Of the plentiful information published in the book, perhaps the most appreciated by birders was his field separation – without optical aids – of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Wood Warbler by call, song and appearance, avoiding the contemporary vogue for specimen collection. Even today, the first two species still cause frequent identification problems. With this profound distinguishing of three then-common small birds, White set out exactly the kind of observations that would attract many people to the hobby of birding, and also recruit others into academic ornithology and the natural sciences.

White was also among the first to speculate that Swallows migrated, despite the traditional but unfounded belief that they hibernated, noting in a letter to Barrington in June 1769 that “Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain and seed; and therefore at the end of summer they retire”, after noting all the local summer visitors’ arrival and departure dates. He also thought about why the numbers of his local Common Swifts remained static every year, despite their breeding success, raising the questions of their destination every autumn, their survival potential and the availability of nest sites. His reputation, even in his own lifetime, led to biologist John Latham naming White’s Thrush in his honour.

The accuracy of the information contained in Selborne and White’s diaries and notebooks remains useful today, as these, along with the diaries of William Markwick in Battle, Sussex, have provided unique historical comparative data on the phenology – that is, the study of the effect of climate on the seasonal cycles of animals and plants – of more than 440 species over the 25-year period between 1768 and 1793. Such data are essential in judging the reality and effects of climate change, perhaps humanity’s most pressing global issue.

Selborne was probably the first of an eventual myriad of natural history and birding memoirs, and certainly one of the most lyrical, accurate and detailed. The book has never been out of print and remains an object lesson in meticulous systematic note-taking and record-keeping.