Birthday book
The much-loved annual publication is celebrating its 40th birthday. How has this venerable institution – and the world around it – changed in that time?
The Birdwatcher’s Yearbook celebrates a milestone
In mid-1980, aged seven, I did something that would change my life. I joined the Young Ornithologists’ Club (YOC), the children’s branch of the RSPB, and ‘officially’ became a birdwatcher. The same year, university librarian John Pemberton did something that would change many a birdwatcher’s life. He launched the Birdwatcher’s Yearbook.
A photograph of a Dotterel adorned the cover alongside the year, 1981, to which the book would pertain. The 40th instalment, relating to 2020, has just reached the bookshops. Numerous Bird Watching readers will have owned a copy at some point in the last four decades – and many purchase it, annually. But how has this doughty paperand-card publication remained such a celebrated fixture in today’s digital world?
Five years into my membership of the YOC, I entered my local library to scrutinise the sparsely populated natural history section. I knew pretty much all the books available – even having several on repeat loan.
That day, however, an unexpected and unfamiliar item graced the shelves. It was the 1985 volume of
The Birdwatcher’s Yearbook. I remember it vividly: a cobalt-blue cover framed a painting of a Hobby pursuing Swifts – a raptor that I
could then only dream of seeing. Thumbing the pages revealed a treasure trove of hitherto unimaginable information. Lists of birdwatching sites and organisations. An article on county bird-races (what were those?). A piece on the life of a bird-observatory warden (people got paid to watch birds?). A feature on long-haul birding (people travelled vast distances to watch birds?). The Yearbook opened my eyes. There was a bird-filled world out there, and this book was a passport to exploring it.
John Pemberton’s concept of a birdwatching almanack was a stroke of genius – a market niche identified and expertly filled. A compendium of useful information consolidated into a portable product that could be flicked through by the hearth or slipped into a car’s glove compartment to accompany field trips. Pemberton’s goal was clear. In the opening paragraph of his preface to the 1981 Yearbook, he explained that he was “providing a comprehensive and convenient work of reference for all sections of the birdwatching community”. Precisely the publication – detailed, organised, informative – that befitted a professional librarian.
Reference material provided the mainstay of that inaugural volume – as it has every successor. But there was (and is) much more to the Yearbook. In that first preface, Pemberton outlined his mission statement: “to enable birdwatchers to widen their horizons; [the Yearbook] will open up for them new avenues to explore and make them conscious of the constructive part they can play in conserving our nation’s wildlife”.
This motivational mantra took (and still takes) the form of feature articles about birds and birdwatching. Contributors to the first edition included luminaries of the era such as Peter Holden (then head of the YOC, writing about birdwatching for young people), one-time Bird Watching contributor Ian Wallace (rare birds) and Tim Sharrock, former editor of British Birds magazine (breeding bird atlases). Three-fifths of subsequent features have covered birding organisations, bird recording or recreational birdwatching – the very core of our hobby.
After 20 years of running the Birdwatcher’s Yearbook in his spare time, John Pemberton passed the reins to David and Hilary Cromack. David edited Bird Watching for many years and bought Pemberton’s publishing company, Buckingham Press, as a new challenge. “I had long thought the Yearbook a valuable product,” David recalls, “and was concerned that it would succumb if nobody took over from John”.
THE BIRDWATCHER’S YEARBOOK 2017 INCLUDED A FEATURE ARTICLE ON THE RETURN OF CRANES TO THE SOMERSET LEVELS
Bold design
The Cromacks’ first Yearbook came in 2002. Initially tinkering little with the content, they made their mark by changing the book’s appearance. A fresh typeface and layout elicited a bolder design more in keeping with the new millennium. The Cromacks ended 12 years of what became a familiar front cover comprising outlines of a tern, falcon, plover and swallow against a coloured background. “Being fans of bird art,” David recalls, “we reverted to John’s earlier approach of showcasing paintings”.
The Cromacks found it tough taking the helm of an ornithological institution. “At first, I was like a rabbit caught in headlights,” Hilary says. “This was no learning curve but a cliff edge with an overhang.” In a way, the Yearbook was a victim of its own success. Birdwatchers had come to rely on its reference section – so that needed to be 100% accurate. “Updating information became a major endeavour, involving sending hundreds of letters each year,” Hilary recalls. In those days, the internet was not ubiquitous – so there was no quick fix.
Over time, the Cromacks deepened the Yearbook’s substance. “We were birdwatchers,” Hilary says, “so understood what birdwatchers would find useful”. One key development was an expanded reserves section; more interesting and wider-ranging articles another. After 14 years, the 2015 issue was the Cromacks’ last. They found a willing buyer in
Dorset-based birdwatcher Neil Gartshore, who runs the bookseller Calluna Books and had long been a Yearbook fan. “The Cromacks didn’t want to sell to a commercial publisher,” Neil remembers. “They wanted to hand the mantle to someone who would put personal effort into the Yearbook.”
If it ain’t broke...
Neil’s first change was to return to Pemberton’s original visual gambit of using photography on the front cover. In itself, this was a sign of the times – a recognition of the digital-photography revolution that has textured the birdwatching world.
“With so many high-quality images out there,” Neil says, “it was daft not to use them”. Neil has also introduced edgy content – “inspired by my background as a conservationist”, he explains. There are recent articles on how birdwatching can disturb wildlife, the accessibility of nature reserves, the ‘hookpod’ invention that may save albatrosses, and the Swift’s population slump.
The Yearbook’s reference heart, however, goes on – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, Neil grins – but its strengths are being deepened, including through a revamp of the reserves section in the 2020 edition. This particular change is both striking and telling. Surely every reserve, big or small, has an internet entry nowadays – providing fundamentally similar information for free? If so, who still buys the Yearbook, and why?
Firstly, “the internet has not killed off the published book, as many people predicted,” Neil says. “Sales of physical books overall are going up, whereas the digital market has plateaued.” The several thousand copies of the Yearbook bought each year render it a case in point. With sales on an upwards trajectory, it is thriving rather than merely surviving.
Still popular
With its repository of valuable information alongside news, views and reviews, Neil reckons, “the Yearbook offers something for everyone”. Many people, he says “want the convenience of having a book to hand in the car, rather than have to faff around with a smartphone”.
A proportion of readers, Neil thinks, do not readily use computers. Moreover, the internet is not always reliable. In checking entries for inclusion, Neil has discovered bird clubs with a residual existence in cyberspace that have actually disbanded.
Other buyers “use the Yearbook for the diary,” Neil has discovered. “The checklist is particularly popular, as are the tide
tables.” Other readers I have spoken to laud the consolidation of bird-related news or the assembly of the year’s best bird books. Something for everyone, indeed.
Looking to the future
This doughty publication has endured the ravages of time largely unblemished. Moreover, seen as a series spanning 40 years, its feature articles chart the evolution of the British birdwatching world. The first volume introduced readers to a wildlife charity called the Society for the Promotion of Nature Conservation.
For many of us, the name will be unfamiliar – but this body presaged the Wildlife Trusts. Since that article was written, the Trusts’ collective membership has increased six-fold and its reserve holdings have doubled. Today, we access news on rare birds through smartphone apps, pagers or the internet. The precursors to such methods were telephone hotlines – and a Yearbook feature in 1988 explained their genesis. A 1991 article charted the contemporary and potential use of computers in producing bird club reports. That will seem a different era for anyone now submitting bird records in real time through BirdTrack or eBird. The 1994 Yearbook offered advice on how to make, buy and use bird-sound recordings. Nowadays, we simply open an app on our smartphone and hit the red button…
Since 1981, there have been twice as many UK prime ministers as editors of The Birdwatcher’s Yearbook. Each ‘holder of office’ takes their role seriously. “I see myself only as a guardian of the Yearbook, not its permanent owner,” Neil says. “It will outlast my involvement. At some point, I will hand over the torch. I see no reason why this conversation could not be re-run by a different interviewer and interviewee in 10 years’ time – to celebrate this wonderful publication’s golden anniversary.”