At the Society for the Protection of Birds’ sixth annual general meeting in 1896, Miss Julia Andrews, a fifty-eight year old spinster and local secretary for the Society’s branch in Teddington, rose to ask a very uncomfortable question to all the good and the great – as well as the more middling sort such as […]
The sound is like nothing else on earth.
I was sound asleep, breathing in the fresh, clean air of the Berkshire countryside that drifted into my room through an open window near the bed, when I was jerked into consciousness by what I at first thought was a woman screaming. As I lay there in the dark, asking myself just what it was that I heard, another scream burst through the midnight silence, followed quickly by two more. By that time it was clear to me that it wasn’t a human scream, but for the life of me I couldn’t find anything in my brain to which it might be connected. More mammalian than avian, I finally drifted back off to sleep after some time, puzzling over the just what it might have been.
It was a fox – a Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes to be precise.
Sitting comfortably with a friend in two ancient chairs by the window at The Fox & Hounds in the Berkshire village of Theale, waiting for the rain to stop in order that we might continue with our plans of having a look at the waterfowl on Hosehill Lake, my friend casually declared “That’s the second time they’ve been up there.”
The first Robin (Erithacus rubecula) I ever saw was in the garden of the Natural History Museum. Even though it was a juvenile, I was thrilled to have finally seen one after reading about them for so many years. I finally saw one in adult plumage in Warnemunde, Germany some time later. It was truly a delight.