Naturalists' Notebooks: a treasure trove

For the last few months, I’ve been time-travelling. Three boxes of index cards, carefully inscribed with the neat, tiny handwriting of Peter Hope Jones have taken me all over North and Mid Wales. To places I’ve yet to visit for real, experiencing birds vicariously, some before I was born. Given to RSPB Cymru before his death, he requested they be archived at Amgueddfa Cymru after those of value had been digitised.

For those who don’t know, Peter Hope Jones was a legend of 20th century Welsh ornithology, working for the Nature Conservancy (a forerunner of NRW), writing the first avifauna of Meirionnydd and co-authoring the first for Caernarfonshire and Anglesey, editing the annual Bardsey Bird Observatory report for 30 years, and chairing the Welsh Ornithological Society when it formed in 1988.

But back to the cards. I’ve recorded and checked almost 10,000 records into a spreadsheet that has been uploaded to BirdTrack and shared with Cofnod and the other Local Environmental Record Centres. They mostly cover the period from 1965 to 1976 and as well as his own notes, include reports from other birdwatchers – some dating back to 1935 – that informed his Birds of Merioneth book, published by Cambrian Ornithological Society. His correspondents included many other luminaries of natural history, including Geoff Gibbs, Derek Ratcliffe and Bill Condry.

Although many important records were published in PHJ’s book or the 2012 sequel, Adar Meirionnydd by Rhion Pritchard, reading the contemporary written records – and locating places on the map to find the grid reference – made them more real. They took me high into the Rhinogydd, where Black Grouse and Red Grouse were widespread; into riparian woodlands from the Dwyryd to the Dyfi where Willow Tits were regular and a dozen sites still held Lesser Spotted Woodpecker; and to wetlands where three-figure counts of Pochard were annual. Other species now rare in Meirionnydd include Bewick’s Swan (104 on a calm sea at Llandanwg in March 1968 feels almost inconceivable now) and Shore Lark, averaging one every other year.

There were, of course, rarities. He documents the first Meirionnydd record of Little Egret on the Dyfi estuary in 1970; a Surf Scoter off Pen-y-chain in 1972; and a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at Morfa Harlech in 1975 that was jointly the first in Wales. There are no Great White Egrets, Cetti’s Warblers or Avocets, and only a handful of Canada Geese, including the first Meirionnydd record in March 1963. Of Goshawk, he noted “11 released to date” in Coed y Brenin at the start of 1970, acknowledging the (re)introduction by falconers.

It was a time of the last breeding attempts by Corncrake, including a “nest shown by a roadman on south side of Bryncrug” in 1968. While apparently not abundant, Tree Sparrow nests remained widespread across the county. And there is an intriguing possible breeding attempt by a pair of Common Gulls on the north bank of the Dyfi estuary in April-July 1969.

The cards document the spread of Collared Doves following their arrival in the early 1960s; within six years there was a “colony” of 32 birds in Tywyn. He noted occasional wintering by Blackcaps, the earliest in Barmouth in February 1969, and judging by the fastidious recording of seemingly every Stonechat, this was a species hit hard by the winter of 1962/63. There are just two records of Osprey, both in spring 1974, illustrating how scarce the species was in the half century before the area became the beating heart of the Welsh breeding population.

Some cards report the unusual, such as three Tawny Owl nests on the ground (including “a brood in a rabbit hole” at Caegwernog in 1967), but others contain every bird seen on a site visit, ‘complete lists’ that are so valuable in assessing the reporting rates of species. They capture a moment in social history too, with records from rural halts on rail lines that would be axed by Dr Beeching, and references to Swallows and Starlings nesting in abandoned station buildings. The one non-avian entry is a Grey Squirrel at Minffordd in September 1973, which presumably reflects its rarity in the locale.

Recorders’ notebooks from the pre-digital era are a treasure trove, often lost in house moves or destroyed in clearances. We probably don’t appreciate that our own notes can contribute to future understanding of changes in an area’s wildlife. How much is already lost? Entering your own records into BirdTrack or Cofnod’s ORS could be a project for winter evenings and will take you off down memory lane. PHJ’s are banked; now I ought to do my own…