Birds: William Warde-Fowler is a classical 'Oxonbirder'

Keith Clack on the life of a singular naturalist and conservationist

In previous articles I've looked at the lives of several ornithologists with strong Oxford connections and their importance in British ornithological history.

I'd now like to introduce you to someone who's sheer pleasure of seeing and hearing birds makes him an 'Oxonbirder' of special note, one who should perhaps stand higher than he seems to in ornithology and its literature.

William Warde-Fowler was born in Somerset in 1847 and gained a first class degree at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he was soon elected to a fellowship and tutored in ancient history there and also Oriel College for many years. Here his days were an idyllic mixture of birds, ancient Greece and Rome and, before he went to bed, music.

He became highly respected in his field and was a prolific author, particularly on Roman Religion, publishing many books and papers of note which established his reputation throughout the world.

It was while in Oxford that Warde-Fowler gained such enjoyment of birds and each morning would endeavour to fit in a 30 to 45-minute walk around sites close to the college in central Oxford. His preferred walks would take him along the Cherwell at Parsons Pleasure, to Christchurch Meadow, Port Meadow and the Parks and many of his observations and thoughts are in chapters of his most popular work published in1886,entitled 'A Year With the Birds' and which went into several editions.

This book shows his feeling for nature as it begins "This little book is nothing more than an attempt to help those who love birds....".

He was particularly taken with the Cherwell and its wildlife, spending many hours there with Grey Wagtails being one of his favourite subjects and considered in depth in this title.

Of course he lived in that golden age when so many of our vanishing birds were plentiful and easy to see regularly, even so close tom the city centre, and he records that within three miles of the college Wood Warblers and Grasshopper Warblers were to be found while he also notes that in 1885 the Redstart had become very common along the banks of the Cherwell and Port Meadow.

In a later work he mentions that Whinchat commonly nested along the railway cuttings around Chipping Norton.

Although A Year With The Birds is his best known title, he also published three others of note: Tales of the Birds (1888), Summer Studies of Birds and Books (1895) and More Tales of the Birds (1902), and he became friendly with several well known naturalists of the age.

He was particularly close to Julian Huxley and when the latter joined the army in 1917 and was at a training camp near Aldershot, he wrote to Warde-Fowler listing the birds he had seen in and around the camp. This amounted to some 66 species and included Cirl Bunting, Wryneck and Red Backed Shrike showing just what we have lost today.

Warde-Fowler lived a busy life while at Oxford and apart from his birding walks he became a curator of the Parks and Botanic Garden while in the same year was appointed as the first sub-rector in the history of the college.

Warde-Fowler never married, and when he retired he lived with his sisters in Kingham in a splendid house he had built in a typical Oxford town house style of the time, until his death in 1921 and from where he could set out on a whole new series of sites to stimulate his observations.

Situated as he was, he spent many hours among the birds and wildlife with many believing that his recording of the local wildlife was to be measured alongside that of Gilbert White in his most famous of books on the wildlife in and around Selborne.

Certainly Julian Huxley stated as much in his obituary of Warde-Fowler in British Birds. As if to underline his enjoyment of all things natural, in 1920 he turned his attentions to the workings of the solitary bees and their nest building habits in the mortar of various houses in the village.

These recordings and writings were published in Kingham, Old and New.

He especially liked to listen to bird song and call and was expert at recognizing both while on his walks so that in later years as he became very deaf, this was a great sadness to him.

Warde-Fowler loved nature for nature's sake and was wise to the already growing pressures. Indeed, among his observations on bird migration, he once wrote of the "incredible passion of the Italians for Robins on toast"! Fortunately he saw the first stirrings of protection for wildlife also and noted that the new wildlife act now prevented Kingfishers from being shot between the months of March and August, although he also noted that their speed might also help them survive.

A gentle man who enjoyed his passions of birds, Mozart and the Romans with equal enthusiasm, Warde-Fowler deserves his place among our very best Oxonbirders.

And when you're next in a good, secondhand bookshop, see if you can find one of his gems.