BBC Wildlife - UK (2019-12)

56 BBC Wildlife December 2019

engravBlackbirds: Paul Sawer/FLPA; stamps: Stan Pritchard/Alamy: fox: Ivy Close Images/Alamy;

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verse was originally written to celebrate

12 different birds.

Since the late 18th century – when The

Tw e l v e D a y s o f C h r i s t m a s first appeared

in English – poets, writers, musicians

and storytellers have produced a wealth

of folktales, poems and songs about the

birds in the carol. Take the opening two

lines: a partridge in a pear tree and two

turtle doves. Both the grey partridge and

turtle dove are intimately linked with the

British countryside and the way we use our

land: they thrived in the days of traditional

farming but are now suffering steep declines

due to modern intensive agriculture. As

a result, both are heading rapidly towards

extinction in the UK.

Their disappearance would be a disaster

for biodiversity, but would also represent a

deep cultural loss. To the 19th-century poet

John Clare, grey partridges were a constant

companion as he wandered through the

fields near his Northamptonshire home.

In one poem, Clare evoked their constant

alertness against predators:

Oft frighted up they startle to the shade

Of neighbouring wood and through

the yellow leaves

Drop wearied where the brakes and ferns

hath made

A solitary covert – that deceives

For there the fox prowls its unnoticed round

And danger dares them on every ground.

Clare also tells the story of how, at the start

of the shooting season on 1 September,

partridges would turn up in the most

unexpected places – on one occasion, seeking

sanctuary in the house of the poet’s next door

neighbour, who promptly killed and ate it.

Ailing partridge

It has been argued that grey partridges

only survive in parts of Britain because

of conservation measures carried out on

shooting estates. Yet the figures tell a very

different story: a century ago, an estimated

two million partridges were shot each year;

today, the total breeding population is just

44,000 pairs. It also strikes me as peculiar

that we rightly condemn the slaughter of

turtle doves in Malta, while seeming to accept

the mass killing of partridges in the UK.

Until recently, the turtle dove was also a

common and familiar sight across southern

CHRISTMAS BIRDS

Top and right:

Christmas stamps

commemorate the

carol, 1977.

Above: two ‘coaly’

(black) birds – a

common winter

sight when the

song was written.

Both the grey partridge

and turtle dove are

intimately linked with

the British countryside.