West Midland Bird Club

Birds and peace

Horace Alexander: 1889 to 1989 Birds and Binoculars by J Duncan Wood. William Sessions Ltd, [mail order detials were here] 

If you were one of the 314,000 people who participated in last year's RSPB Big garden birdwatch, this book may interest you. Horace Alexander was born in the same year as the RSPB, founded to end the trade in plumage for ladies' hats, and was an active member.

The book, like Horace's life, covers most of the 20th century, from Victorian times when identification was confirmed with the gun; it introduces characters who pioneered techniques of field study, censuses, field guides, and details tensions between collectors and observers, and co-operation between scientists and watchers. Geoffrey Carnall gives useful background to Horace's life, highlighting important relationships and outlining his work as a peace campaigner, at Woodbrooke and with Gandhi in India throughout the turbulent 1930s and 1940s.

Horace was blessed with remarkable eyesight and hearing, the latter sadly failing in later life so that he could no longer enjoy the song, but over 90 years, he achieved a bird-watching life list of 1726 species, the last added when he was 94. Wherever his peacemaking took him, Horace watched birds, needing 'the respite he found among the birds to recover the strength and composure for the work in hand'. This book stirred me into walking along Langstone Harbour on a blustery winter's day to enjoy Brent geese, gulls, cormorant and egret.

Horace's autobiography may well be an inspiring read for Friends, with his closing words: 'When man's inhumanity to man gets the better of us, we can restore our equilibrium by turning again to nature, the universal Mother, and by exploring her secrets from the inside'.

Sarah Coote