BIRDS OF A FEATHER
The 120-year-old ornithological records and writings of a Wigtownshire naturalist have finally been published and demonstrate a worrying decline in bird species
Jack Gordon’s book on the birds of Wigtownshire is finally in print, 120 years after it was written
An extraordinary book recently arrived in the post. Jack Gordon’s Birds of Wigtownshire is like no other bird book I have come across. Apart from its attractive cover – Ralston Gudgeon’s illustration of golden plover in flight – its pages contain no bird pictures. Instead there are vintage postcards of Wigtownshire from John Adair’s private collection and watercolours by James Faed jnr. The information within its pages makes for absorbing reading, yet it has taken 120 years for it to reach the public domain.
Twenty years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Donald Watson – an ornithologist, writer and wildlife artist of repute. His stories were intriguing and Jack Gordon of Corsemalzie, Wigtownshire, was often the topic of conversation.
Chris Rollie, a former science teacher and naturalist who moved to Dumfries and Galloway in 1991 to become the RSPB’s Conservation Officer, knew Donald Watson. It’s largely due to the conversations between Rollie and Watson that Jack Gordon’s Birds of Wigtownshire has finally been published. Joining forces with Richard Mearns, long time ranger with Dumfries and Galloway Council and a distinguished author and naturalist himself, Rollie
has compiled a limited edition volume that contains astounding avian information. This reveals not only incredible changes in attitudes, but also, sadly, how the numbers of so many species have plummeted.
Rollie explains that he first heard about Jack Gordon by the fireside, in the friendly, pipe- smoked atmosphere of Donald Watson’s sitting room. ‘Donald’s links to many great ornithologists were astonishing,’ said Rollie. ‘He also had a wealth of local bird records from the early 20th century including manuscripts and notebooks belonging to T.B Hough of New Galloway, and Jack Gordon of Corsemalzie. After Donald’s
‘His stories were intriguing and Jack Gordon was often the topic of conversation’
death these manuscripts and papers were passed to me. I became passionately interested in Jack Gordon and the more I studied his detailed records, the more I realised something had to be done to publish his great work.‘
Amongst the papers passed to Rollie was a letter Gordon had sent to British Birds in 1912, requesting any records of Wigtownshire birds, old or recent, for his forthcoming book. Although this encouraged massive correspondence, still the book lay dormant.
Jack, who was born in 1876, became keen on birds as a boy, and was highly skilled at finding nests and climbing crags or tall trees in pursuit of new discoveries. Rollie says that Jack meticulously recorded everything in his journals, with the eggs catalogued on data cards. ‘One year (1895) he found 105 song thrush nests around his home at Corsmalzie, as well as 10 blue tit eggs in a nest on the back of a live toad in a rotting stump. Can you imagine finding that many thrushes’ nests today?’
Gordon was an avid naturalist, sportsman, ornithologist and oologist. His neighbour Gavin Maxwell noted that ‘Jack Gordon is the owner of one of the largest egg collections in the world’. When the young Gavin and his brother stumbled across Gordon for the first time in woods close to their family home, they struck up a friendship with the older man who became instrumental in encouraging their own natural history pursuits. Indeed Gordon was an important mentor to Gavin Maxwell.
Though Gordon was a keen shot and spent much time with the aristocracy, landowners and gamekeepers, during his era it was still perfectly acceptable not only to collect eggs, but also to shoot a bird merely to confirm its species. However, he had his limits and refused to shoot some species including tufted duck (now common) and merlin. His notes reveal that he was careful to take only one or two eggs from clutches of rarer local birds. Choughs were still breeding on the rugged Galloway coast, and when Gordon and his brother found a clutch of five of their eggs in May 1907, they only took one.
He also records impressive numbers of nightjar – now only rarely found in the Galloway forest – and of black game and merlin. He describes how magpie numbers increased dramatically following the war years when keepers had been called up, and the importance of weedy, winter turnip fields for a host of songsters in winter, including thrushes and vast mixed flocks of finches. Extensive cropping with fields of oats and barley meant that in 1916 during shoots Gordon recorded a staggering bag of 8,000 wood pigeons.
‘Perhaps Gordon’s most interesting, and indeed important observation,’ notes Rollie, ‘relates to the famous irruptions of Pallas’s sand grouse that arrived in the British Isles in May 1888 only to be met with such slaughter that a special Act of Parliament was passed to offer them protection.’
It was probably too late. Gordon’s notes reveal that between 1500-2000 sand grouse arrived in Scotland, and some of these were shot
in Glenluce. Many people sent Gordon specimens, and a burgeoning correspondence revealed more information on birds all over the country, particularly in the Machars area of Wigtownshire. He had a particular love of birds of prey and firmly believed that their feeding habits did nothing to affect the population of other species. The cuckoo, now massively in decline, appeared to have been commonplace around Corsemalzie and there is a record of seven birds in Gordon’s garden in 1910. Dates of their arrival vary by almost a month with earliest records on 7 April 1927, and latest on May 1 in 1903. Though he claims to have found it hard to find cuckoo’s eggs, Gordon notes meadow pipit, whitethroat, blackbird, pied wagtail, and skylark amongst its host species. House sparrows, once frequent around Corsemalzie, seem to have declined as the family gave up keeping horses in 1915, the ‘spuggie’s’ demise also seems to have been linked to the removal of ivy off the old walls of the house.
Gordon’s wide correspondence led to a global trade in birds’ eggs. Today the main body of his extraordinary collection is in Delaware Museum of Natural History in the United States. His butterfly and moth collection was kept in Newton Stewart High School for many years but sadly seems to have been lost.
Jack’s great-grandfather, George McHaffie, was provost of Wigtown, and the family lived in the main street. This building is now Shaun Bythell’s The Bookshop, reputed to hold the largest stock of second hand books in Scotland. It seems fitting that Jack Gordon’s important book was launched at the Wigtown bookshop in October 2016, adding another extraordinary chapter to Scotland’s ornithology, thanks to the determination of two of his followers, Chris Rollie and Richard Mearns.
‘Jack, who was born in 1876, became keen on birds as a boy and was highly skilled at finding nests’