For The Record - A Catalogue Of The City's Wildfowl (2 September 1978)

I was rather pleased at the controversy in the Gazette’s letter columns by the proposal to introduce Canada Geese to the Mount Farm lake.  Not that I relish the idea of people going at each other with beak and claw.  It is simply nice to know there are so many people taking a keen interest in the ornithological branch of local wildlife.

My own knowledge of the subject is very limited.  Nevertheless, the course of this piece, I hope to produce information of interest to friend, foe and neutral alike.

First I ought to say that that stretch of water never was natural within the fullest meaning of the word.  There are still people around who can remember when there was no water there at all and the area was just part of the fairly flat land that still surrounds it.  The change began with the excavation of gravel and was so recent that one local man remembers working there on that job.

Over a comparatively short number of years two pits were dug close to each other.  I fancy that two were dug because water soon began to collect in the first one.  It is also a known fact that at one stage the gravel began to be forced out mechanically by water-pressure.  Eventually the workings were abandoned and very soon both pits were full of water and fringed by reeds and other growth, which made the site a paradise for water fowl.

A frequent visitor then was the late Mr. Percy King, who was a notable amateur naturalist and also the wild life recorder for the district.  In the early 1950’s I interviewed him from season to season and on the strength of his information wrote articles on the current wildlife of the district – birds, small animals, insects, plants, the lot excepting fish.  He died in 1955 and I would like to know who, if anybody, now has the diaries and notebooks he kept.  They would be full of information as relevant today as then.

I know of only one published list that was ever attempted of birds found in Bletchley.  It was drawn up in about 1930 by the then rector, the Rev F W Bennitt, with the help of a certain Mr. Lister, and was published as a kind of appendix to Mr. Bennitt’s History of Bletchley.  Only some 200 copies of the History were printed.

I doubt whether any student of natural history will be aware of it, so I propose to give it now, so that it can be kept for reference.

First I must point out that the book in general is about the parish of Bletchley only not about Fenny Stratford and certainly not about Simpson, in which parish the Denbigh Road gravel pits were then situated.  But whether the list of birds also refers only to Bletchley Parish I cannot say.

Secondly, the birds are not listed under their scientific names but under their common names and common names are apt to differ in various parts of the country.  Thus, in the part of Yorkshire where I came from a starling was always a shepster, a thrush was always a throstle, and a lapwing was always a tewit.

The list does not separate water fowl from the rest and I am hoping that people will be able to do that for themselves.  It does, however, divide the birds into those that are here all the year round, those that come in summer to breed, and those that come in winter.

Here then is the list of those stated to have been here all the year round in 1930.

Missel thrush, gont thrush, blackbird, robin, hedge sparrow, long-raised tit, great tit, coal tit, marsh tit, greenfinch, hawfinch, goldfinch, siskin, blue tit, nuthatch, wren, tree creeper, house sparrow, chaffinch, linnet, bullfinch, yellow bunting, reed bunting, starling, jap, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, rook, skylark, nightjar, green woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker, lesser spotted woodpecker, kingfisher, barn owl, long-eared owl, short-eared owl, tawny owl, little owl, sparrow-hawk, kestrel hawk, heron, mute swan, mallard, shoveller, wood pigeon, stock dove, rock dove, pheasant, partridge, red-legged partridge, water rail, moorhen, coot, lapwing and little grebe.

Summer migrants breeding here were the wheatear, whinchat, stonechat, red-start, nightingale, white throat, lesser whitethroat, blackcap, garden warbler, goldcrest, chiffchaff, willow warbler, reed warbler, sedge warbler, grasshopper warbler, pied wagtail, white wagtail, yellow wagtail, grey wagtail, tree pipit, meadow pipit, red-backed shrike, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house martin, sand martin, corn bunting, cirl bunting, woodlark, swift, wryneck, cuckoo, turtle dove and land rail,

Snipe and wild geese were “occasional visitors” while there were also some “rare visitors”.

The following were listed as visiting Bletchley only in the winter: Redwing, fieldfare, lesser redpoll, hooded crow, golden plover and common snipe.

That ends Mr. Bennitt’s list.  Mr. King took in the district as a whole, but I can find mention of only one extra bird.  That is the willow wren, which he said was one of two or three birds which arrived in spring before the cuckoo (whose usual date of arrival he gave as April 12).  However, at the back of my mind I believe he also mentioned the pilchard and the tufted duck.

It would be nice now to have something more up to date, if only to see what effect the development of the area is having on bird life.  So will you good people who have been arguing about Canada geese please get together instead to compile a comprehensive list and public it for the general benefit?