Birds in London Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORMORANTS AT ST. JAMES'S PARK]

CHAPTER X

NORTH-WEST AND NORTH LONDON

Open s.p.a.ces on the border of West London--The Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal Green Cemetery--North-west district--Paddington Recreation Ground, Kilburn Park, and adjoining open s.p.a.ces--Regent's Park described--Attractive to birds, but not safe--Hampstead Heath: its character and bird life--The ponds--A pair of moorhens--An improvement suggested--North London districts--Highgate Woods, Churchyard Bottom Wood, Waterlow Park, and Highgate Cemetery--Finsbury Park--A paradise of thrushes--Clissold Park and Abney Park Cemetery.

Before proceeding to give a brief account of the parks and open s.p.a.ces of North-west and North London it is necessary to mention here a group of open s.p.a.ces just within the West district, on its northern border, a mile and a half to two miles north of Ravenscourt Park. These are Wormwood Scrubs, Little Wormwood Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal Green Cemetery. As they contain altogether not far short of three hundred acres, and are in close proximity, they might in time have been thrown into one park. A large open s.p.a.ce will be sadly needed in that part of London before many years are pa.s.sed, and it is certain that West London cannot go on burying its dead much longer at Kensal Green. But it is to be feared that the usual short-sighted policy will prevail with regard to these s.p.a.ces, and a good deal of the s.p.a.ce known as Old Oak Common has already been enclosed with barbed-wire fences, and it is now said that the commoners' rights in this s.p.a.ce have been extinguished.

Beyond these s.p.a.ces are Acton and Harlesden--a district where town and country mix.

From Wormwood Scrubs to Regent's Park it is three miles as the crow flies--three miles of houses inhabited by a working-cla.s.s population, with no green spot except the Paddington Recreation Ground, which is small (25 acres), and of little or no use to the thousands of poor children in this vast parish, being too far from their homes.

Crossing the line dividing the West from the North-west district near Kensal Green, we find the following four not large open s.p.a.ces in Kilburn--Kensal Rise, Brondesbury Park (private), Paddington Cemetery, and Kilburn or Queen's Park (30 acres).

All this part of London is now being rapidly covered with houses, and the one beautiful open s.p.a.ce, with large old trees in it, is Brondesbury Park. How sad to think that this fine park will probably be built over within the next few years, and that the only public open s.p.a.ce left will be the Queen's Park--a dreary patch of stiff clay, where the vegetation is stunted and looks tired of life. Even a few exceptionally dirty-looking sparrows that inhabit it appear to find it a depressing place.

Two miles east of this melancholy spot is Regent's Park, which now forms one continuous open s.p.a.ce, under one direction, with Primrose Hill, and contains altogether 473 acres. It is far and away the largest of the inner London parks, its area exceeding that of Hyde Park by 112 acres.

Its large extent is but one of its advantages. Although not all free to the public, it is all open to the birds, and the existence of several more or less private enclosed areas is all in their favour. On its south, east, and west sides this s.p.a.ce has the brick wilderness of London, an endless forest of chimneys defiling the air with their smoke; but on the north side it touches a district where gardens abound, and trees, shrubs, and luxuriant ivy and creepers give it a country-like aspect. This pleasant green character is maintained until Hampstead Heath and the country proper is reached, and over this rural stretch of North-west London the birds come and go freely between the country and Regent's Park. This large s.p.a.ce should be exceedingly attractive to all such birds as are not intolerant of a clay soil. There are extensive green s.p.a.ces, a good deal of wood, and numerous large shrubberies, which are more suitable for birds to find shelter and breed in than the shrubberies in the central parks. There is also a large piece of ornamental water, with islands, and, better still, the Regent's Ca.n.a.l running for a distance of nearly one mile through the park. The steeply sloping banks on one side, clothed with rank gra.s.s and shrubs and crowned with large unmutilated trees, give this water the appearance of a river in the country, and it is, indeed, along the ca.n.a.l where birds are always most abundant, and where the finest melody may be heard. All these advantages should make Regent's Park as rich in varied bird life as any open s.p.a.ce in the metropolis. Unfortunately the birds are not encouraged, and if this park was not so large, and so placed as to be in some degree in touch with the country, it would be in the same melancholy condition as Hyde Park. The species now found are the blackbird and thrush, greenfinch (rare) and chaffinch, robin, dunnock, and wren (the last very rare), and in summer two or three migrants are added. But most of the birds find it hard to rear any young owing to the birds'-nesting boys and loafers, who are not properly watched, and to the cats that infest the shrubberies. Even by day cats have the liberty of this park. Wood-pigeons come in numbers to feed in the early morning, and a few pairs build nests, but as a rule their eggs are taken. Carrion crows from North London visit the park on most days, and make occasional incursions into the Zoological Gardens, where they are regarded with very unfriendly feelings. They go there on the chance of picking up a crumb or two dropped from the tables of the pampered captives; and perhaps for a peep at the crow-house, where many corvines from many lands may be seen turning their eyes skyward, uttering at the same time a cry of recognition, to watch the sweeping flight of their pa.s.sing relatives, who 'mock them with their loss of liberty.'

The water-birds (wild) are no better off in this park than the songsters in the shrubberies, yet it could easily be made more attractive and safe as a breeding-place. As it is, the dabchick seldom succeeds in hatching eggs, and even the semi-domestic and easily satisfied moorhen finds it hard to rear any young.

The other great green s.p.a.ce in the North-west district is Hampstead Heath, which contains, including Parliament Hill and other portions acquired in recent years, 507 acres. On its outer border it touches the country, in parts a very beautiful country; while on its opposite side it abuts on London proper, forming on the south and south-east the boundary of an unutterably dreary portion of the metropolis, a congeries of large and densely-populated parishes--Kentish and Camden Towns, Holloway, Highbury, Canonbury, Islington, Hoxton: thousands of acres of houses, thousands of miles of streets, vast thoroughfares full of trams and traffic and thunderous noises, interminable roads, respectable and monotonous, and mean streets and squalid streets innumerable. Here, then, we have a vast part of London, which is like the West-central and East-central districts in that it is without any open s.p.a.ce, except the comparatively insignificant one of Highbury Fields. It is to the Heath that the inhabitants of all this portion of London must go for fresh air and verdure; but the distance is too great for most people, and the visits are consequently made on Sundays and holidays in summer. Even this restricted use they are able to make of 'London's playing ground,'

or 'Happy Hampstead,' as it is lovingly called, must have a highly beneficial effect on the health, physical and moral, of the people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH]

To come to the bird life of this largest of London's open s.p.a.ces. Owing to its very openness and large extent, which makes it impossible for the constables to keep a watch on the visitors, especially on the gangs of birds'-nesting boys and young men who make it a happy hunting-ground during the spring and summer months, the Heath is in reality a very unfavourable breeding-place for birds. Linnets, yellowhammers, chaffinches, robins, several warblers, and other species nest every year, but probably very rarely succeed in bringing up their young.

Birds are nevertheless numerous and in great variety: the large s.p.a.ce and its openness attract them, while all about the Heath large private gardens, woods, and preserves exist, which are perfect sanctuaries for most small birds and some large species. There is a small rookery on some elm-trees at the side of the High Street; and another close to the Heath, near Golder's Hill, on the late Sir Spencer Wells's property. And in other private grounds the carrion crow, daw, wood-pigeon, stock-dove, turtle-dove, white owl, and wood owl, green and lesser spotted woodp.e.c.k.e.r still breed. The corncrake is occasionally heard. The following small birds, summer visitors, breed on the Heath or in the adjacent private grounds, especially in Lord Mansfield's beautiful woods: wryneck and cuckoo, gra.s.shopper-, sedge- and reed-warblers, blackcap and garden warbler, both whitethroats, wood and willow wrens, chiffchaff, redstart, stonechat, pied wagtail, tree-pipit, red-backed shrike, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house martin, swift, and goldfinch.

Wheatears visit the Heath on pa.s.sage; fieldfares may be seen on most days throughout the winter, and occasionally red-wings; also the redpole, siskin, and the grey wagtail. The resident small birds include most of the species to be found in the county of Middles.e.x. The bullfinch and the hawfinch are rare.

My young friend, Mr. E. C. H. Moule, who is a keen observer, has very kindly sent me his notes on the birds of Hampstead, made during a year's residence on the edge of the Heath, and taking his list with my own, and comparing them with the list made by Mr. Harting, published in Lobley's 'Hampstead Hill' in 1885, it appears that there have been very few changes in the bird population of this district during the last decade.

It would be difficult to make the Heath itself a safer breeding-place for the birds, resident and migratory, that inhabit it. The only plan would be to establish small sanctuaries at suitable spots. Unfortunately these would have to be protected from the nest-robbers by spiked iron railings, and that open wild appearance of the Heath, which is its princ.i.p.al charm, would be spoiled.

With the ponds something can be done. There are a good number of them, large and small, some used for bathing in summer, and all for skating in winter, but so far nothing has been done to make them attractive to the birds; and it may be added that a few beds of rushes and other aquatic plants for cover, which would make them suitable habitations for several species of birds, would also greatly add to their beauty. How little would have to be done to give life and variety to these somewhat desolate-looking pieces of water, may be seen on the Heath itself. One of the smallest is the Leg of Mutton Pond, on the West Heath, a rather muddy pool where dogs are accustomed to bathe. At its narrow end it has a small bed of bulrushes, which has been inhabited by a pair of moorhens for several years past. They are very tame, and appear quite unconcerned in the presence of people standing on the margin to gaze at and admire them, and of the dogs barking and splas.h.i.+ng about in the water a few yards away. There is no wire netting to divide their own little domain from the dogs' bathing place, and no railing on the bank. Yet here they live all the year round very contentedly, and rear brood after brood of young every summer. Here, as in other places, it has been observed that the half-grown young birds a.s.sist their parents in building a second nest and in rearing the new brood, and it has also been remarked that when the young are fully grown the old birds drive them from the pond.

There is room for only one pair in that small patch of rushes, and they know it. The driven-out young wander about in search of a suitable spot to settle in, but find no place on the Heath. Probably some of them spend the winter in Lord Mansfield's woods. A gentleman residing in the neighbourhood told me that at the end of the short frost in January 1897, when the ice was melted, he saw one morning a large number of moorhens, between thirty and forty, feeding in the meadow near the ponds in Lord Mansfield's grounds.

I have been told that no rushes have been planted on the Heath, and nothing done to encourage wild birds to settle at the ponds, simply because it has never occurred to anyone in authority, and no person has ever suggested that it would be a good thing to do. Now that the suggestion is made, let us hope that it will receive consideration.

I fancy that every lover of nature would agree that a pair or two of quaint pretty moorhens; a pair of lively dabchicks, diving, uttering that long, wild, bubbling cry that is so pleasant to hear, and building their floating nest; and perhaps a sedge-warbler for ever playing on that delightful little barrel-organ of his, would give more pleasure than the pair of monotonous mute swans to be seen on some of the ponds, looking very uncomfortable, much too big for such small sheets of water, and altogether out of harmony with their surroundings.

With the exception of this omission, the management of the Heath by the County Council has so far been worthy of all praise. The trees recently planted will add greatly to the beauty and value of this s.p.a.ce, which contains open ground enough for all the thousands that visit it in summer to roam about and take their sun-bath.

Near the Heath, on its east side, in the North London district, we have a group of four highly attractive open s.p.a.ces. They are ranged in pairs at some distance apart. One pair is Highgate Woods (70 acres) and Churchyard Bottom Wood (52 acres), not yet open to the public; the second pair is Waterlow Park (26 acres) and Highgate Cemetery (40 acres). The two first have a special value in their rough, wild, woodland character, wherein they differ from all other open s.p.a.ces in or near London. But although these s.p.a.ces are both wildernesses, and so close together as to be almost touching, they each have an individual character. A very large portion of the s.p.a.ce called Highgate Woods is veritably a wood, very thick and copse-like, so that to turn aside from the path is to plunge into a dense thicket of trees and saplings, where a lover of solitude might spend a long summer's day without seeing a human face. Owing to this thick growth it is impossible for the few guardians of this s.p.a.ce to keep a watch on the mischievous visitors, with the result that in summer birds'-nesting goes on with impunity; the evil, however, cannot well be remedied if the woods are to be left in their present state. It would certainly greatly add to their charm if such species as inhabit woods of this character were to be met with here--the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, the kestrel and sparrow-hawk and the owls, that have not yet forsaken this part of London; and the vociferous jay, shrieking with anger at being disturbed; and the hawfinch, with his metallic clicking note; and the minute, arrow-shaped, long-tailed t.i.ts that stream through the upper branches in a pretty procession. But even the warmest friend to the birds would not like to see these woods thinned and cut through with innumerable roads, and the place changed from a wilderness to an artificial garden or show park.

The adjoining Churchyard Bottom Wood is the wildest and most picturesque spot in North London, with an uneven surface, hill and valley, a small stream running through it, old unmutilated trees of many kinds scattered about in groups and groves, and everywhere ma.s.ses of bramble and furze.

It is quite unspoiled, in character a mixture of park and wild, rough common, and wholly delightful. Indeed, it is believed to be a veritable fragment--the only one left--of the primaeval forest of Middles.e.x.

It is earnestly to be hoped that the landscape gardener will not be called in to prepare this place for the reception of the public--the improver on nature, whose conventional mind is only concerned with a fine show of fas.h.i.+onable blooms, whose highest standard is the pretty, cloying artificiality of Kew Gardens. Let him loose here, and his first efforts will be directed to the rooting up of the glorious old gorse and bramble bushes, and the planting of exotic bushes in their place, especially the monotonous rhododendron, that dreary plant the sight of which oppresses us like a nightmare in almost every public park and garden and open s.p.a.ce in the metropolis.

Waterlow Park, although small, is extremely interesting, and contains a good amount of large well-grown timber; it is, in fact, one of the real old parks which have been spared to us in London. It is indeed a beautiful and refres.h.i.+ng spot, and being so small and so highly popular, attracting crowds of people every day throughout the summer months, it does not afford a very favourable breeding-place for birds.

Nevertheless, the number of songsters of various species is not small, for it is not as if these had no place but the park to breed in; the town in this district preserves something of its rural character, and the bird population of the northern portion of Highgate is, like that of Hampstead, abundant and varied. There is also the fact to be borne in mind that Waterlow Park is one of two s.p.a.ces that join, the park being divided from the cemetery by a narrow lane or footpath. To the birds these two s.p.a.ces form one area.

Of Highgate Cemetery it is only necessary to say, in pa.s.sing, that its 'manifest destiny' is to be made one open s.p.a.ce for the public with its close neighbour; that from this spot you have the finest view of the metropolis to be had from the northern heights; and when there are green leaves in place of a forest of headstones, and a few large trees where monstrous mausoleums and monuments of stone now oppress the earth, the ground will form one of the most beautiful open s.p.a.ces in London.

There are two little lakes in Waterlow Park where some ornamental fowls are kept, and of these lakes, or ponds, it may be said, as of the Hampstead ponds, that they are too small for such a giant as the mute swan. On the Thames and on large sheets of water the swan is a great ornament, his stately form and whiteness being very attractive to the eye. On the small ponds he is apt to get his plumage very dirty and to be a mischievous bird. He requires s.p.a.ce to move about and look well in, and water-weeds to feed on. It is not strange to find that our small, interesting, wild aquatic birds have not succeeded in colonising in this park.

A mile and a half east of Waterlow Park there is the comparatively large park, containing an area of 115 acres, which was foolishly misnamed Finsbury Park by the Metropolitan Board of Works. It is the largest and most important open s.p.a.ce in North London, and with the exception of that of Battersea is the best of all the newly-made parks of the metropolis. It promises, indeed, to be a very fine place, but its oldest trees have only been planted twenty-eight years, and have not yet attained to a majestic size. There is one feature which will always to some extent spoil the beauty of this spot--namely, the exceedingly long, straight, monotonous Broad Walk, planted with black poplars, where the trees are all uniform in size and trimmed to the same height from the ground. Should it ever become necessary to cut down a large number of trees in London for fuel, or for the construction of street defences, or some other purpose, it is to be hoped that the opportunity will be seized to get rid of this unsightly avenue.

The best feature in this park is the very large extent of well-planted shrubberies, and it is due to the shelter they afford that blackbirds and thrushes are more abundant here than in any other open s.p.a.ce in the metropolis, not even excepting that paradise of birds, Battersea Park.

It is delightful to listen to such a volume of bird music as there is here morning and evening in spring and summer. Even in December and January, on a dull cold afternoon with a grey smoky mist obscuring everything, a concert of thrushes may be heard in this park with more voices in it than would be heard anywhere in the country. The birds are fed and sheltered and protected when breeding, and they are consequently abundant and happy. What makes all this music the more remarkable is the noisiness of the neighbourhood. The park is surrounded by railway lines; trains rush by with shrieks and earth-shaking thunder every few moments, and the adjoining thoroughfare of Seven Sisters Road is full of the loud noises of traffic. Here, more than anywhere in London, you are reminded of Milton's description of the jarring and discordant grating sounds at the opening of h.e.l.l's gates; and one would imagine that in such an atmosphere the birds would become crazed, and sing, if they sang at all, 'like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.' But all this noise troubles them not at all; they sing as sweetly here, with voices just as pure and rapturous, as in any quiet country lane or wood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DABCHICK FEEDING ITS YOUNG]

The other most common wild birds are the robin, t.i.ts, starling, dabchick, and moorhen. The chaffinch, greenfinch, hedge-sparrow, and wren are less common.

Half a mile to the east of Finsbury Park we have Clissold Park (53 acres), comparatively small but singularly attractive. This is one of the old and true parks that have remained to London, and, like Ravenscourt and Brockwell, it has an old manor house standing in it; and this building, looking upon water and avenues of n.o.ble elms and wide green s.p.a.ces, gives it the appearance of a private domain rather than a public place. Close by is Abney Park Cemetery, which is now so crammed with corpses as to make it reasonable to indulge the hope that before long it will be closed as a burial place, only to be re-opened as a breathing s.p.a.ce for the living. And as the distance which separates these two s.p.a.ces is not great, let us indulge the further hope that it may be found possible to open a way between them to make them one park of not less than about a hundred acres.

Clissold Park is specially interesting to bird lovers in London on account of the efforts of the superintendent and the park constables in encouraging and protecting the bird life of the place. In writing of the carrion crow, the jackdaw, and the little grebe, I have spoken of this park, and shall have occasion to speak of it again in a future chapter.

South of Clissold, with the exception of the strip of green called Highbury Fields, there is no open s.p.a.ce nearer than St. James's Park, four miles distant. Highbury Fields (27 acres) was opened to the public about twelve years ago, and although small and badly shaped, it is by no means an unimportant 'lung' of North London. To the inhabitants of Highbury, Canonbury, and Islington it is the nearest open s.p.a.ce, and though in so vast and populous an area, is a refres.h.i.+ng and pretty spot, with good shrubberies and healthy well-grown young trees. A few years ago a small rookery existed at the northern extremity of the ground, where some old trees are still standing, but the birds have left, it is said on account of the decay of their favourite tree. Skylarks also bred here up to the time of the opening of the ground to the public. The only wild birds at present, after the sparrows, are the starlings that come in small flocks, and a few occasional visitors. A few years ago it was proposed to make a pond: I fear that the matter has been forgotten, or that all the good things there were to give have been bestowed on the show parks, leaving nothing for poor Highbury and Islington.

CHAPTER XI

EAST LONDON

Condition of the East district--Large circular group of open s.p.a.ces--Hackney Downs and London Fields--Victoria Park with Hackney Common--Smoky atmosphere--Bird life--Lakes--An improvement suggested--Chaffinch fanciers--Hackney Marsh with North and South Mill Fields--Unique character of the Marsh--White House Fishery--The vanished sporting times--Anecdotes--Collection of rare birds--A region of marshes--Wanstead Old Park--Woodland character--Bird life--Heronry and rookery--A suggestion.

Judging solely from the map, with its sprinkling of green patches, one might be led to suppose that East London is not worse off than other metropolitan districts in the matter of open s.p.a.ces. The truth is that it is very much worse off; and it might almost be said that for the ma.s.s of East-enders there are practically no breathing s.p.a.ces in that district. The population is about a million, the greatest portion of it packed into the parishes which border on the river and the East Central district; that is to say, on all that part of London which is most dest.i.tute of open s.p.a.ces. In all this poor and overcrowded part of the East the tendency has been to get more and more housing-room out of the ground, with the result that not only have the old gardens vanished but even the mean back-yards have been built over, and houses densely packed with inmates stand back to back, or with little workshops between. One can but wonder that this deadly filling-up process has been permitted to go on by the authorities. It is plain that the people who live in such conditions, whose lives are pa.s.sed in small stuffy rooms, with no outside s.p.a.ce but the foul-smelling narrow dusty streets, are more in need of open s.p.a.ces than the dwellers in other districts; yet to most of them even Victoria Park is practically as distant, as inaccessible, as Hyde Park, or Hampstead Heath, or the country proper. If once in many days a man is able to get away for needed change and refreshment, he finds it as easy to go to Epping Forest as to Victoria Park and Hackney Marsh; but it is not on many days in the year, in some cases not on any day, that he can take his wife and children.