A History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects

An early RSPB membership card from 1897, in an era when the charity did exactly what its name and card implied; today it is more of an all-round conservation organisation, as the interconnectedness of nature has become obvious to science and public alike.

Possibly the greatest influence on both British conservation and birdwatching has been the nation’s foremost specialist ornithological charity, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Fittingly, the organisation had its roots in an anti-exploitation campaign opposed to the use of wild birds’ feathers in fashionable ladies’ hats (see pages 72–73), and was started by Emily Williamson and Eliza Phillips in 1889, then without its ‘Royal’ prefix. Initially composed mainly of society women who, like its founders, were horrified by the cruelty, waste and destruction of the plume industry, the addition of notable ornithologists to its ranks both promoted this cause and enabled the society to expand its remit substantially and with authority.

Granted a Royal Charter in 1904, the then London-based society had already begun producing publications, a constitution and Christmas cards, and by 1899 was influential enough to convince Queen Victoria to ban the army from wearing Osprey plumes. In 1903, it began its regular magazine entitled Bird Notes and News (later just Birds and ultimately Nature’s Home), and by 1930 had purchased its first nature reserve at Cheyne Court, Kent, bought for its rich Romney Marsh water meadows, which had unfortunately been drained of both water and conservation usefulness by 1950, resulting in its sale.

The society’s founding in the aristocracy and upper middle classes enabled considerable influence over the makers of legislation in Parliament almost immediately, and key laws, prosecutions and fines over issues such as the import of wild bird feathers (1921), spillage of oil (1931) and the taking of wild birds for aviculture (1934) began highlighting the importance of conservation in both government and public consciousness.

Lessons were learned rapidly, and reserves continued to be founded with the opening of Dungeness, Kent, and Eastwood, Cheshire, in 1930. Perhaps the first real direct conservation success was the return of the Avocet as a British breeding bird simultaneously at Havergate and the flagship Minsmere reserve in 1947; the species was later adopted as the society’s symbol in 1955. The famous and popular Osprey Hide at Loch Garten opened in 1959, at which point the RSPB had over 10,000 members; it took only a decade to achieve five times this figure. A decade later there were over 300,000 paid-up members, with 100,000 of these being under 16 and in the Young Ornithologists’ Club (see pages 140-141).

1979 also saw the launch of the RSPB’s first Big Garden Birdwatch, introducing the society into the vanguard of ‘citizen science’ which has proved so important in monitoring many changes in Britain’s birdlife. Further innovations were forthcoming, not least the largest ever land purchase by a British nongovernmental organisation when the society bought Abernethy Forest in 1988 for £1.8 million, and the following year half a million people demonstrated their concern for birds by paying for RSPB membership. Land use reversal was also initiated at Lakenheath Fen, where large swathes of Suffolk carrot fields and former poplar forestry were bought to convert back to their original habitat of extensive reedbeds and riverine woodland.

A protracted campaign begun in 1996 finally had the result of RSPB membership reaching the milestone figure of a million individuals in 1997, though the number has risen little since. The reasons for this are unclear, but it may be partly the case that it is only this proportion of the British public which has an active interest in birds and their conservation, with incoming younger members balancing out the deaths of older. That said, a million members is a hefty wedge of positive environmental opinion to throw at legislators and others, and the RSPB’s position as Britain’s most popular and important conservation body remains unchallenged and much imitated abroad.

Its reach over the last 20 years has involved promoting and conserving ‘our’ bird species at their wintering and foreign breeding sites, as well as liaising with many other national and international organisations, notably via collaborations with BirdLife International, whom it represents in the UK. Today its influence is more wide-ranging and powerful than ever before, influencing governmental decisions over energy, land use, agriculture, and industrial and construction developments, as well as carving out a significant section of the spending muscle of the ‘green pound’, the purchasing power of which can frequently speak louder than mere protest.