Easter 2007 — Eggs & Birds

This is a bullfinch egg. Both sexes have a stout black bill, black wings, nape, crown and chin, and a white rump. The male, however, is unmistakable with his bright pinkish-red breast, belly and cheeks, and bright white rump. The female, by way of contrast, has a duller brown back and pinkish-fawn underparts. The scientific name of this bird, Pyrrhula, comes from the Greek ‘purrhos’ or flame-coloured. Bullfinch numbers have dropped dramatically in recent years.

The engravings that are used on each page of this calendar are by Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Bewick’s love of birds is evident in his work and his book from which they are taken - The History of British Birds (1797-1804) - is considered a key text of British ornithology. His importance to the study of birds is reflected in the fact that shortly after his death he was commemorated by the naming of a species of swan, Bewick's Swan. Bewick's Wren also took his name.

His love for birds was kindled by an encounter with a bullfinch. He recalled the incident in his memoirs, which he wrote shortly before his death. He begins by describing how, as a child, he used to try and catch birds:

I had no doubt knocked many down with stones before, but they had escaped being taken – This time however, the little victim dropped from the tree and I picked it up, - struck with its beauty, I instantly ran into the House with it – it was alive & looked me so piteously in the face, and as I thought (could it have spoken) it would have asked me, why I had taken away its life. – I felt greatly hurt, at what I had done & did not quit it all the afternoon – I turned it over & over, admiring its plumage – its feet its Bill & every part of it – It was a Bulfinch – I did not know its name but was told it was a ‘Little Matthew Martin’ – this was the last bird I killed, but many indeed have been killed since on my Account.

The last sentence refers to the fact that every bird he engraved was drawn from specimens that had been deliberately shot and then sent to him. In those days there were no cameras and binoculars – killing the bird was the only way to be able to get a good look at it.

Bewick recognised the terrible irony that his curiosity – his love – for birds was bound up with their destruction. An emblem, perhaps, of the way so much human curiosity – and its child, science – has ambiguous consequences.