I’ve birded in many countries the world over and have never really thought the UK was a great birding location but this trip reminded me of how Brits were probably the first ever bird watchers or twitchers and brought such a great hobby to us. Our original plans were to go hiking in the Lake District but with only 3 days, we decided not to go quite so far as the Lakes…. as it turned out I found out that an old classmate from school in Malaysia from 50 years ago was living in a house called ‘BIRD COTTAGE’ in Ditchling, Sussex Downs. It was but a 1 and a half hour drive from Heathrow….
Bird Cottage was the home of a well known British ornithologist Gwendolen ‘Len’ Howard who left London aged 40 and started living herein Ditchling in the 1940s for a few decades. She was convinced that birds were intelligent creatures, able to communicate and learn and spent her years studying them.
We arrived in Ditchling in the evening and checked into the White Horse Inn which really wasn’t very good; unfortunately the nicer pub/inn The Bull was full on the nights we were there. Dinner at the Bull was very good though! The next day we descended on our target, Bird Cottage…..
It took a bit of effort but we found it along a quiet lane in Ditchling….Catching up with a classmate from 6th Form whom I hadn’t seen for more than 50 years was great….and to find her and husband custodians of this wonderful property that has such historical links to birding and one of its early enthusiasts was mind boggling. We were shown the original bird cottage where Len Howard had interacted with the birds she was studying. Of course the house has had renovations and rebuilds adding to the original cottage but it’s been done very nicely and tastefully. From the kitchen window where we had coffee, my eyes kept being drawn to the backyard where a bird feeder had been set up with bird feed, nuts….the birds kept flying in and out…literally scores of them in quick succession and often simultaneously. They must have thought me very rude for I kept raising my camera to shoot the birds through the kitchen window!
We then took a short walk into the village via a small graveyard where amongst the gravestones was a bare patch where Len Howard (1894-1973)herself had been interred in an unmarked grave by choice…
Len Howard’s final resting place in the green fields of Sussex
After a quick lunch, we settled into the back garden of Bird Cottage to see what the bird life was about…..We sat very near to the feeders for a couple of hours only to discover that the birds were very put off by our presence…only when we eventually retreated into the kitchen did they return in numbers….Len was right….they don’t like strangers intruding into their patch!
Bird cottage from a distance..picture taken from the meadow. The backyard is to the left where we sat at the table shooting the birds….One of the many bird feeders in Bird CottageIn the end, we had to shoot from slightly further away so we wouldn’t spook the birds…the original Bird Cottage is the gabled white portion right at the far end of the house….
Most of the birds visiting that afternoon were tits….great tits and blue tits were the commonest and there were also very nice sightings of long tailed tits and an occasional coal tit. These are often difficult to shoot, fast moving and small birds…this was such a treat to be up close and personal with them….
A most handsome Great Tit!and an equally handsome Blue Tit….we were taught that you recognise the blue tit by the black mask running across the eye….clearly seen here…They would sit in the surrounding trees and check us out and then swoop in and peck around at the nuts and feed…some would linger on the feeder and playBlue tit posing on the feederGreat tit facing off with blue tit….action shot!Great TitBlue titAs if he was missing out on the attention, this robin sang lustily as he observed us observing the tits…we heard the long tailed tits well before we saw them and they were very shy, but eventually the lure of the feeders overcame their reluctance…Long tailed Tit…so prettysuch a charmerA Dunnock also joined in the activity but mainly stayed on the ground…Final bird of the afternoon was the Coal Tit….the least common tit we saw….when I took the picture I didn’t realise it was a coal tit till I was looking at the pictures…..one of its features is a white patch on the back of the head/neck…..just a hint of it in this pictureblue tit in actionEven the local church, one of three in this small parish, featured birds in its stained glass windows!and if you want to read more about it, this wonderful little book about bird cottage, Len Howard and the birdlife is well worth a read.
This was truly a magical day spent in an environment of peace, quiet and natural tranquility interacting with our beautiful avian friends. Doesn’t get much better than this! Many thanks to our hosts for allowing us the run of the garden!
