By Jeffery J. Wheatley. Surrey Bird Club, 2007. 696 pages; 11 colour plates; 57 line-drawings; 36 colour photographs; numerous maps and tables. ISBN 978-0-901363-08-6. Hardback, £35.00.
This book has been a long time coming, but it really has been worth the wait! It was originally conceived as a successor to Parr's Birds in Surrey 1900-1970, which would incorporate the results of the county tetrad breeding atlas carried out from 1988 to 1994 (later extended to 1997). However, the work became a labour of love for the sole author, Jeff Wheatley, and he broadened his researches to include much pre-twentieth century information and even evidence from the fossil record.
The book is in two main parts: a lengthy introduction and the systematic list. The former is a pleasure to delve into and comprises seven sections, including 'geology, climate, weather and land use', 'the development of the landscape', and 'the history of bird recording in Surrey'. There is a wealth of interesting information here, including a summary of the documented climatic events for the last 300 years; the spread of urbanisation and resultant loss of heathland (Surrey's key habitat); and a summary of other important habitats and main ornithological sites. The introduction is followed by a brief section summarising information about the changing population of various species, migratory movements and roosts.
The systematic list covers all 339 species reliably recorded in the vice county of Surrey (VC 17) and Spelthorne district. The latter, although outside the vice county, is within the present administrative county and includes important sites such as Staines, King George VI and Queen Mary Reservoirs, Perry Oaks Sewage Farm (now obliterated by Terminal Five at Heathrow airport) and Staines Moor. This somewhat pragmatic approach is surprising given that Surrey Bird Club still sticks rigidly to VC 17 as its recording area; no doubt the first authoritative summary for the Spelthorne sites since the publication of a revised edition of Birds of the London Area in 1964 will result in further sales, and rightly so! The Surrey list by region and month, which follows the systematic list, shows that the inclusion of Spelthorne adds six waders and two terns (Sternidae) to the county list.
The species accounts are particularly detailed; for example, that for House Martin Delichon urbicum has 15 sections, including early Surrey history, nest-sites, large counts, visible migration, movements, longevity, parasites and plumage variations. This gives an indication of the subject matter that has been researched exhaustively. Despite the detail, much of the text is easy to read, although there are too many lengthy lists of locations and inconsistencies between the accounts. It is not always clear exactly what period is covered; a clearly stated cut-off date with an appendix of noteworthy later records up to the date of publication would have been preferable. The arrival of summer visitors is well analysed, with bar charts showing average arrival dates by ten-year periods and a discussion of any trends for each species. A mass of other data is presented in tabular form - wildfowl counts, territory counts of key breeding species and bird-month totals for scarcer visitors.
The tetrad breeding maps are presented clearly, with two sizes of green circle to represent breeding and presence in suitable habitat. Comments on the atlas results vary; consistent coverage for every species including a population estimate at the end of the atlas period and an indication of trends since then, especially given that the atlas was finished over a decade ago, would have been useful. It is surprising that very little comment has been made on the methodology and overall results of the atlas. There are three paragraphs at the end of the introduction but no information about the total number of species found breeding in the county is given, nor is there a map showing the numbers of species recorded in each tetrad.
The book concludes with several short chapters, including hybrids; escapes, introductions and birds of unknown origin; other published records (not admitted to the main list); plus an extensive bibliography and a gazetteer. It is superbly produced. One is immediately struck by the dust jacket, with its wonderfully evocative painting by John Davis of Thursley Common, featuring a heathland scene with two Hobbies Falco subbuteo mobbing a Honey-buzzard Pernis apivorus. Davis is the principal artist, and has contributed a further ten superb full- or double-page paintings of Surrey locations and their birds. Seven artists, including Davis, have contributed 57 line-drawings, which appear throughout the text. The introduction also contains 24 excellent colour photographs of prime habitats.
This is an excellent county avifauna, essential for anyone with an interest in Surrey birds, their history, patterns of occurrence and conservation. It charts the improving fortunes of internationally important populations of European Nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus, Wood Lark Lullula arborea and Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata, and the extremely vulnerable heathlands which they inhabit. This book reveals the history of Surrey's birds and shows that many of them are in a healthier position than they were a century ago; only some farmland and woodland birds have declined to a parlous state but that is being addressed on a wider scale. Jeff Wheatley is to be highly congratulated on a job well done; despite my few niggles, this is a magnificent book.
There has been a run of excellent county avifaunas recently and, whilst these are generally well covered by reviews in other publications, I couldn't let this one pass without a mention. Jeff Wheatley, who has been county bird recorder since 1983, has done a superb job bringing together large amounts of information in a very readable style. Having cut my birdwatching teeth in Surrey in the 1960s, I was very pleased to see the clear historical perspective that underpins the species accounts. The specially commissioned series of paintings by John Davis are a delight. Surely an indispensable publication for many years to come for anyone interested in the wildlife of the county.
Birds of Surrey by Jeffery Wheatley. 2007. Surrey Bird Club. 696 pages, with colour and black-and-white illustrations and photographs, graphs and maps. Hardback £35.00.
This weighty volume of nearly 700 pages was published by the Surrey Bird Club with financial support from British Airways Environmental Fund, Haslemere Natural History Society, Thames Water plc and also by a private donation. The author, Jeffery Wheatley, is the County Recorder for the club. This work is a tremendous feat for one man - a county book of this size would normally have three or four authors. But, being written by one man, it has his style on every page, and is highly readable, with facts expressed in an interesting and thought-provoking way.
Sometimes, with books such as this, it is easy to spot things that have been omitted, but with this book there is far more information than I had ever realised was available for the county of Surrey. The lengthy Introduction is in seven parts; of these, I found 'Habitats and their Birds' to be the most interesting. It takes up 39 pages and describes all of the habitats of the county and, within these, divisions mention birding sites and some of the birds found in those places. This section has numerous habitat photographs, both from the air and from the ground. None of these pictures contain people and the photographers must have taken their pictures early in the mornings! They create the illusion of a rural paradise where there are no dog-walkers or noisy groups who, in real life, regularly destroy the ambiance and disturb the breeding birds.
At page 107, we come to the main part of the book: the Systematic List, which runs for 526 pages. Each species account is broken up into several sections, depending on whether the bird is a resident, a visitor, a colonist or a declining bird and so on. After a few lines on world distribution, the next section is Early Surrey Records, then 1900 onwards (with variations as necessary depending on the species), Breeding, where, if there has been a survey, there is an analysis, Population size, and Movements (citing ringing recoveries). For visiting species, there is a Calendar, with early and late dates and, for breeding birds, there are distribution maps from the 1988-97 Atlas. The latter enhance the text, but their age makes Common Buzzard appear scarce (when it seems to be everywhere now) and Willow Tit seems to have a healthy population (when it has actually been extinct as a breeding bird for several years). For some groups, such as waterfowl and gulls, there are sections on Counts, and even one entitled Feeding and Loafing. Tables, where appropriate, give the numbers of certain species in various parts of the county, while histograms clearly show information such as mean arrival dates in an easily viewed and absorbed form. Thus the information contained in the text is very accessible; if looking for a certain piece of information it can normally be found very easily. Records of birds rare in Surrey are listed.
The next section is The Surrey List by Region, which is followed by Escapes and Introductions, and then Other Published Records. The last contains the only mistake I could find. Here, the 1978 Little Bunting, omitted from the Systematic List, is included as Lapland Bunting. It was only a few hundred yards inside Surrey and the changes to county boundaries must have been a considerable nuisance for the author. He has done very well keeping track of all the other records.
Surrey is not a county that attracts a great deal of rarities although there are some surprising records. The Common Nighthawk and Yellow-billed Cuckoo must have been two of the most unexpected. But having only a trickle of rarities means that the book will stay up to date for much longer than other avifaunas. The county of Surrey is far better known as a place where there are large and important populations of uncommon breeding species and, for me, the accounts of these species are the best parts of the book.
This book is simply very well written and produced and the content is more than would have been expected. The artwork is generally of a high standard and the photographs blend well with the text. It is an essential purchase for Surrey birders.
This new county avifauna, the first in three decades, provides a comprehensive review of the birds of Surrey, Spelthorne and that part of Greater London that sits south of the Thames. Each species account is written with authority and the level of detail presented reflects the terrific amount of work put in by the author. There may have been a substantial delay in production but it has clearly been worth the wait.
