Growing up in the countryside of Britain during the 1950s, I always was fascinated by the sight and sound of the yellowhammer. It belongs to the bunting family and is sparrow-sized at 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) in length. The males would sing from the tops of hedges “tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-tehe-e-e-e-se” (last note drawn out), which was translated in English to “a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese”. It was all part of the countryside charm that I describe in my novel Unplanned. Supposedly, the song inspired the four-note opening motif (dit-dit-dit-dah) of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, when he heard the yellowhammer sing as he walked in Prater-park in Vienna, or so the story goes.

The male yellowhammer has a bright lemon-yellow head and yellowish underparts, a chestnut rump, greenish olive on the nape, wing feathers that are red-striped black, and white on its outer tail feathers. The female is more drab and streaky. Walking home from primary school, these birds would regularly greet me from the hedgerows and road margins. They were delightful. At the time, there was probably around  four million of these birds across the British countryside, and the bird was described as “abundant in the York area” in the late 1950s, with the addendum that “no walk or cycle ride in the York district fails to disclose the presence of these birds, especially during the breeding season”. They are typically residents, and gather in large mixed flocks during winter, with other buntings, finches and sparrows. They feed mainly on seed, especially foraging for spilt grain and where cereal is fed to cattle. Yellow hammers typically build their nests on or very near the ground among vegetation or low bushes. I watched these birds as a young child to locate their nests, and took some ogf their eggs for my collection.

Yellowhammer nest

This situation began to change in the UK, slowly at first, but by the 1980s, yellowhammer numbers were under threat from agricultural interventions. Hedgerows were removed to increase the acreage of farmland, changes in agricultural practices reduced the amount of seed available, urbanization took away habitat, the greater use of pesticides harmed the population, and crows and cats found it easier to catch these birds.

Today, the number of British yellowhammers has fallen by well over 50 percent since 1970 to approximately 1.5 million, and the species is now on the UK Red list of Conservation Concern. For unknown reasons  the yellowhammer has not chosen to use back yard bird feeders.

Yellowhammer range map

It is widely distributed across Europe, and its Asia range includes northwest Turkey, the Caucasus, and northern Kazakhstan. It was introduced by humans many decades ago into New Zealand (where it is widespread and common), South Africa, and the Falkland Islands, but it is not found in North America. There are alternative buntings in North America, but not many in California. Of the 9 North America species, only the Lazuli bunting is seen in my state, and is uncommon where I live.

Curiously, you will hear people in North America talk about yellowhammers, but they are not the bird that I grew up with. It is the local nickname given to the northern flicker (or eastern yellow-shafted flicker) that is present in Alabama.  The underside of its wings and tail are bright yellow feathers and it “hammers” away (drums) with its beak when searching for food.  The rumor is that the bird’s nickname was first given to Confederate soldiers in Alabama  who wore pieces of yellow cloth attached to their uniforms as they went off to battle.  It became recognized as Alabama’s state bird in 1927.

It was 1958, I was 14, and had recently joined the York Bootham School Natural History Club to broaden my knowledge of birds and to learn of the best birding spots near York. 138 species were listed by the School, and I had probably seen half of them. A description that caught my eye was that of the lapwing (also called the peewit or green plover) since this was one of the earliest birds I could recognize out in the fields. The Club’s report alarmed me by stating:

“Old Bootham records (beginning March 1851) indicate that this species has always been a common bird in the York area, but it is less common than it used to be. Many diaries at the turn of the century report the presence of many nests in fields near York, while today it is increasingly easy to find fields having no resident pair of breeding lapwing.”

It was enough to stop me from eating their eggs.

Lapwing nest and eggs

This pigeon-sized bird lays – usually 3 or 4 eggs – in an open field, using a scrape in the ground. If its nest is threatened, it may approach you and pretend a wing is damaged by dragging it along on the ground. If you do not follow, it may start to dive-bomb and screeching “peewit, peewit”. The bird is medium-sized (about12 in/30 cm) in length, has black and white plumage, a glossy green back, a wispy crest on its head, and rounded paddle-shaped wings. It breeds across northern Europe and north Asia, and winters as far south as North Africa, Northern India, and southern China. It gets its name from the undulating pattern of its flight and has long suffered from human activity.

Lapwing range map: yellow – breeding; green – year round; purple – winter

Not only were lapwing eggs taken for food in earlier times, but the bird was killed and eaten as a countryside delicacy. The consequences became so severe that the British government passed the Protection of Lapwings Act in 1926 to make it illegal to offer the bird for human consumption or willfully disturb its nest. Even so, during World War 2, its eggs were knowingly taken and turned into powder to be consumed by soldiers on the front line. 

This population decline has continued because of the use of pesticides, loss of habitat, and reduced food supplies. Their number in England and Wales is now  approximately 80 percent lower than it was at the end of the 1950s. Even so, there are still an estimated 140,000 breeding pairs of lapwing, and in winter this number increases to around 650,000 individual birds because of visitors, with many gathering in flocks on flooded pastures and ploughed fields. The species is currently on the UK Red List of birds with conservation concerns, allowing for close monitoring and preventative actions.

Lapwings in winter

I should mention that there is a similar looking bird in the southern hemisphere known as the southern lapwing. This species is widespread throughout South America and its range has expanded to Panama, Costa Rica, and other parts of Central America. Since its population is expanding, it is not considered at risk. Like the northern variety, it has a crest, can be very noisy, and makes use of similar habitats.

Southern lapwing

Arriving in California, I lost contact with this bold and beautifully crested bird  They are not found in North America except for occasional vagrants in eastern Canada and the northeast US. Its closest relative in North America is the widespread killdeer which is also a member of the plover family, has similar feeding habits, is similarly rowdy, and feigns injury to protect its nest. This species I see during much of the year.

Californian killdeer

It seems a long time ago since I ate lapwing’s eggs, and regardless of its legality, I have no intentions of resuming the habit. Hopefully, steps being taken to safeguard the species presence in the UK will be successful.  As temperatures rise, causing foreign birds to arrive in the UK, native birds such as the lapwing are at risk of being pushed out.

Cute lapwings

For 10 years, starting in the early 1950s, my family spent a summer week’s holiday in a rented bungalow on the coastal hillside at Reighton Gap near Filey, Yorkshire. The bungalow has since been demolished. Nearby, to the south-east, stood the hard chalk outcrops forming the nearly perpendicular cliffs known at the time as Bempton Rocks. Today they are named the Bempton Cliffs and are an RSPB Nature Reserve. They were a haunt of mine during my early days of bird watching and a special place for watching the fulmar..

Bempton Cliffs

The cliffs are occupied by about a quarter-of-a-million seabirds that breed along the alluvial ledges that adorn the face. Here is the only gannet colony in England with about 10,000 breeding pairs. I was mesmerized by these birds, so much so that I titled chapter 16 in my novel She Wore a Yellow Dress as The Voracious Gannet. Their insatiable appetite reminds me of my thirst for knowledge during my first job at Ford Motor Company in 1967. It was also at the Bempton Rocks that I was given a guillemot egg to add to my egg collection.

Gannets at Bempton

My favorite species, however, was the fulmars, gull-like, pelagic birds, always over the sea, that glide low over the water and then soar high up the cliff face on rising air. One of their distinguishing features is the “tubenose” or large nostrils on top of their upper bill that links to salt glands in their nasal passage, allowing them to excrete a high saline solution to desalinate their body. Today at Bempton there are about 800 breeding pairs, and following nesting, they spend the rest of their time far out at sea, usually journeying south before returning to their nesting site in spring. 

Occasionally, I would see fulmars over the sea at Spurn Point in the 1960s.  Their breeding population today in the UK is around 500,000 pairs, and in winter, the population grows to in excess of 1.5 million.  A fulmar usually lays one egg on the ledge of bare rock or on a grassy cliff, and defends it and its chick by spitting foul-smelling, orange-colored stomach oil at whatever is threatening it.  There are an estimated 3.5 million fulmars in Europe, and likely well-over seven million globally.

Fulmar tubenose

These are heavy set, medium-sized sea birds (18-20 inches long/46 to 50 cm), colored grey and white, with a pale yellow bill and gray legs, and display a large wingspan. The word fulmar is derived from the Old Norse words full for stinking and mar for gull. There are three subspecies; one that lives in the Arctic, another across the Northern Atlantic, and a third that inhabits the North Pacific.

Fulmar range map: yellow – breeding; blue – wintering

The fulmar, sometimes called the Northern fulmar, is one of the few birds in my childhood that I can also see here in California. The same is not true for the gannet that only breeds on the east coast of Canada and spends winter at sea as far south as Florida and Texas.

However, the opportunity to actually observe fulmars in California is low because they only visit California during winter and spend most of their time away from land. Nonetheless, individuals do show up in bad weather, and if you go whale-watching, you may spot several out at sea. They are a darker gray than the pale white ones I saw at Bempton Cliffs. 

Pacific dark morph fulmar

Globally, fulmars are very abundant and therefore classified as Of Least Concern from a conservation perspective in North America.  They are on the watch list in the UK and Europe because over there, their numbers have declined and dropped about 40 percent since the mid-1980s. They are sensitive to oil and plastic ingestion and can become caught up in fishing nets when following fishing vessels to feed on waste.  Climate change also affects the quality of their food and its availability, which in turn influences the fulmars’ breeding success. This is one of the few species I see in California as well as can go and inspect in the UK when I visit my family.

Falcons have long, pointed wings and fly with strong, rapid wing-strokes. Hawks have rounded wings and in flight alternate between several rapid wing-beats and a short glide. As a result, even before I left primary school in the UK, I could recognize a kestrel from a sparrow hawk. Both species were common around the farms on which I lived. Kestrels would hover above me, waiting to catch their prey, whereas sparrow hawks would fly by, low and fast, in pursuit of some unfortunate bird.  And then one day at school, I had the opportunity to trade a yellowhammer’s egg and one from a tree pipit for a rusty brown egg, about the size of a wood pigeon’s egg, and was told the egg belonged to merlins. My school friend claimed it was a taken from a nearby nest, and the exchange took place only weeks before the 1954 British law forbidding egg collecting was implemented.

European kestrel

Sparrow hawk

My friend assured me the merlin was nesting in a tree close to his home and was using an abandoned crow’s nest for its purposes. He invited me to come and look at it at a place called Redhouse Wood, near to the River Ouse on the west side of York. The wood itself was largely coniferous. I saw the nest and I tried to convince myself that I spotted the parent. The problem was, back then, in the early 1950s,  there were only a few merlins nesting in Britain, and the nearest one  should have been miles away on the North York Moors. These  are supposedly ground nesting birds in the UK, and only appear on the lowlands during winter. Nonetheless, the egg looked very much like a merlin’s according to the illustration in my Bird Book. Some of my earliest early bird watching experiences are included in more detail in the early chapters of my most recent novel She Wore a Yellow Dress. This particular story is referenced in chapter one, titled The Abandoned Cuckoo.

Historically, during the Middle Ages, the merlin was the falcon of choice for important European noblewomen such as Catherine the Great and Mary Queen of Scots, and nicknamed the “lady hawk”. It was used in their sport of hunting skylarks. Even today, some merlins are kept in captivity and are bred to hunt small birds. They fly fast, just a few feet above the ground, in pursuit of songbirds on the wing, and utilize their speed and element of surprise.

Merlin eggs

Merlins are small, fierce falcons, preying on birds ranging in size from sparrows to quail. It is the smallest falcon in the UK, but in North America, where it is  colloquially named the “pigeon hawk”, it is slightly larger than the American kestrel. The male merlin has a slate-gray back and underparts that range from buff to orange-tinted and streaked with black to reddish brown. The female is brownish-gray above, with whitish below spotted in brown. Today there are approximately 1300 breeding pairs in Britain. While their population in my early days of bird watching was fairly stable, despite being persecuted by landowners, their numbers were subsequently reduced  significantly by the introduction of agricultural pesticides. As these chemicals are now banned, and new laws protect the bird and its eggs, the population has increased.

I had to wait until I arrived in California to see my first authenticated merlin. Here the species are winter visitors and can be observed along the Marin Headlands in Northern California. More recently, I thought I had spotted a merlin sitting on a branch a couple of feet above my bird feeder, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a sharp-shinned hawk.  In North America the population of merlins is estimated to be around 1.6 million, and 3.2 million worldwide. They have an extremely broad geographic range and are present across all of North America, Europe and Asia. Many migrate for winter, as far south as South America, and to Southern Europe and North Africa. In Europe, the UK is on the southern edge of the merlins’ European breeding range.

Merlin range map (yellow: breeding/ blue: winter)

Land use change is their greatest threat, especially in their breeding areas, but the species seems willing to adapt and live wherever there is sufficient food and nesting opportunities. Britain considers the merlin an “endangered” species, especially because of global warming that is likely to push the breeding range northwards, with only the Scottish Highlands remaining a refuge for the bird.  It has been added to the Red List of birds facing severe decline and in need of urgent conservation action.

In the United States, it is classified as of “Least Concern”, with its population stable. Here the species is expanding its breeding range south for unclear reasons, and adapting to live in urban and suburban areas so long as there is a food supply and the space to chase down its prey. A merlin will eat as many as 900 birds each year. It may also be following crows that increasingly rely on human habitation for protection and food, and when they abandon their nests, the merlin quickly makes use of them.

I will never know if I truly saw a merlin back in the early 1950s but I still have the egg in my birds’ egg collection. However, it is embarrassing to think that back then I would take birds’ eggs and trade them at school, and give no thought to the consequences.