Richard Cowen (Durham Bird Club volunteer) has been leafing through old copies of the Northern Naturalists’ Union publication, The Vasculuum, published over the period 1929-1945. This quarterly journal had a section on sightings, including birds, and often published articles on bird, or bird-related themes, many of these shed light on the views of ornithologists at the time, or on the birds themselves. The fascinating history of these copies of The Vasculuum themselves is worth documenting. These copies of The Vasculuum belong to Dorothy Hutchinson of Lockhaugh, Rowlands Gill, who has kindly loaned them to the Birds of Durham Heritage Project for research purposes. Dorothy’s father was Charles Hutchinson, a local builder, and well-known naturalist in the Derwent valley (he found a colony of dark green fritillary butterflies in Lockhaugh Cutting - now the Derwent walk - in the 1940s and saw the last Raven, in what is now Gateshead, over a three-day period in spring 1947, in the Gibside Estate!). Charles Hutchinson was also a regular correspondent of the late George Temperley, who visited the family regularly at Lockhaugh, to watch the winter flocks of Waxwing in their garden. Charles had built the first house in what is now the Lockhaugh Estate, essentially surrounded by woodland, including the woodland under storey of guelder rose shrubs, the berries of which were very much favoured by Waxwings. Furthermore, Charles Hutchinson was one of the people involved in the identification of the County’s only breeding record of Nightingales, at Stampley Moss, ‘just up the road from Lockhaugh’. He corresponded with George Temperley on this subject, who from the tenor of the letters, was clearly sceptical, until he was taken, himself, to hear the birds singing, and confirmed the authenticity of the record. Dorothy, now in her eighties, vividly recalls being taken to hear the bird singing when she was a very little girl.
... posted by Keith Bowey
... posted by Keith Bowey
