'Birders
Joyce Grenfell
Birds of Town and Suburb Eric Simms (Collins £3.50)
As its title implies this is a book written about birds in London and other cities, and inner and outer suburban sprawls. It is also a well balanced mixture of the history of how towns have grown up and continue to develop, tied to the author's pleasing observations about birds, trees and wildflowers in urban areas, gathered from his own first-hand discoveries as well as from other people's writings. Some authorities command respect for their knowledge and scholarship but I don't always respond with much honest pleasure to the way they write. Birds of Town and Suburb is a book for enjoyment as well as scholarly information; it commands respect and appreciation.
In the circles in which I move "birding" is common usage for bird-watching and those who do it are "birders". I am one of the humbler variety, enthusiastic but not practised or well-versed. Those who are not yet infected with the same enthusiasm think birders are mad, but what a rewarding and absorbing kind of madness it is; it harms no-one, it isn't violent or noisy, keeps us out in the air and, once you have got your field glasses, it is not expensive. I have to admit that though I am a very interested birder (and wild flower finder), I do not have the Latin names. I spot very well but do not always know what 1 have spotted until I ask my husband or match the object I've seen with the picture in the hand-books I am never without, either in the car or weighing down the pockets of my inevitable plastic mac. My credentials are zest, patience and interested endurance. I mean I will happily stand about in a steep rocky northern wood in the'penetrating wet cold of an English May day hoping the pied fly catcher is back and that I will see him. I also have a proud boast: twice I have been within fifteen feet of a lyre bird in Australia and seen it do its display and dance. To the informed all birds are worth watching; for them there is no snobbery about what a friend of mine collectively calls "the little brown jobs", and it is the presence of these familiar birds in some unusual places that Eric Simms, who is delightfully well informed, reports on with a steady but never bull-dozing enthusiasm that I find sympathetic and attractive. He has organised his book clearly and well, dividing it into ten comprehensive chapters dealing with the various venues where London and other city and suburban birds are found. There are chapters about inner suburbs (St John's Wood in London, for instance); outer suburbs; estates and factories; open spaces; reservoirs, rivers and lakes; marshes; sewage farms (splendid places for bird-watching) and gravel pits. There is a fascinating chapter on roosting sites, and the book ends with "birds on the move". Add to this a comprehensive bibliography, index, maps, diagrams, and thirty pages of really good photographs, some in colour, and you have a valuable publication essential to all birders' libraries. And I think non-birders interested in what goes on in the world around us will enjoy this informative and readable report.
Since [read Birds in Town and Suburb I have counted nine regular birds that frequent the nearby roof tops and communal strip of backgarden of the flats where I live between Fulham and King's Road; and heard of a tenth, a local wren, living three minutes from my door. Now for a trip to the nearest sewage farm.
Joyce Grenfell is an actress and-broadcaster
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