Newbury Field Club1953

NEWBURY FIELD CLUB 1953

Effect of the War Years on the Birds of Bucklebury Common

By Miss L.F. Anderson

An Address to the Ornithological Section on March 10th 1951

I am only speaking of that part of Bucklebury Common which lies on either side of the main road between the Three Crowns and The Blade Bone.  It stretches for about two miles from east to west and varies from about ½ mile to 1 ½ miles width from north to south.  The vegetation in 1939 consisted chiefly of gorse, ling, brambles and bracken and at the south-east end, where there had been fires in recent years, there was a great number of half-grown birch trees to which dozens of Willow-Warblers returned each spring.   To the north lie woodlands and two fish ponds; and on either side of the main road, at both cross-roads and half-way between them, there were circles of pine trees – until about 1930 a large flock of Crossbills used to spend the winter months in these pines, and in summer they were frequented by Nightjars.  Large numbers of Linnets and Yellow Hammers were to be seen in the gorse bushes.

 

In January 1940, the Thames was frozen at Pangbourne and there was an ice storm, which caused devastation amongst the birds.  Many of them were frozen to death and frozen to the twigs on which they perched.  Searching for food in our garden were a Blackbird with its tail so heavily encased in ice that it dragged along the ground and a clock of nine  Skylarks whose wings, as well as their tails, were coated with ice.  Long-tailed Tits, Wrens, Goldcrests, Song-Thrushes and Skylarks were nearly wiped out.  These had hardly begun to increase again when the sever winter of 1946/47 once more caused devastation.  However they have begun to recover now and I have seen Goldcrests for the first time this winter (1949-50), quite a large flock of Long-tailed Tits and one Thrush.

In April 1944, the part of the common of which I am speaking was bull-dozed while the birds were nesting.  The chief sufferers were the Willow-Warblers, Linnets, Yellow Hammers, Chaffinches, and Tree-Pipits.  We lost our last pair of Stonechats, though these had been dying out before the war.  The Tawny Owls left the vicinity when the oak in which they nested was cut down.  Little Owls, however, continued to increase.  When the cam and a Vehicle Reception Depot of 10,000 vehicles were established, the Nightjars, many Cuckoos and the Lapwings went elsewhere.  The Snipe and Grasshopper-Warblers left from the marshy meadows to the north, but the Snipe have now returned and Redshanks have also bred successfully.  The Tree-Pipits managed to survive and sang from the tops of the telegraph poles on the camp perimeter.

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