Birds of the Hull Area
(c) Richard K Broughton
Hull has many amateur naturalists and birdwatchers that do not, or maybe cannot, visit the top Yorkshire birdwatching sites on a regular basis. For them the interest is strictly a local affair and something to be indulged on a Sunday morning or after work. Others are content just to watch the bird table from their kitchen window. Luckily, however, it is very easy for residents of even the most built up areas of the city to get out into the surrounding countryside or to a green oasis within the city itself. The Hull area is quite a green conurbation, with its large municipal parks and cemeteries, old rail trails, wide drains and boundary hedges, the Humber shore, pockets of undeveloped land and the fringing farmland. This provides many opportunities for people to connect with the wildlife around them, especially birds. The diversity of local habitats, from tidal mudflats to suburban avenues, and Hull’s geographical location within Britain and Europe, means that a wide range of species pass by, through or over the area. From oceanic seabirds on the Humber to migrants from Scandinavia, eastern Europe and Africa to vagrants from the Mediterranean, Asia and the Americas, all have visited the Hull area and they continue to do so.
These things were the inspiration for this book. I have tried to write a definitive local avifauna for those folk who have noticed that we are not alone in this world and want to know more about the birds they share their city and villages with. This book covers what species there are, where they are, why they are there and how they have coped alongside us. The scope is purposefully broad in order to accommodate everyone with an interest in Hull’s birdlife, from the garden birdwatchers to the dedicated birder-cum-twitcher. The species accounts for common birds are therefore just as detailed as those for the scarcer ones, often more so.
The number of bird species reported in the Hull area up to August 2001 stands at 272. Deciding how many of these are genuinely wild birds is not easy, however. There is a confusing gradation between clearly inadmissible birds that have very recently escaped from captivity (such as the Zebra Finch), through escapees that can live happily in the wild and even breed (e.g. Muscovy Duck), to those that have established naturalised populations (like the Canada Goose). Then, of course, there are the others that are here totally under their own steam, such as the Blackbirds in your garden or a Black Kite overhead. Furthermore, there are those birds that may occur as escapees as well as being potential vagrants (such as White Stork), and others that are wild but may have endured part of their journey to the Hull area in captivity (e.g. Red-headed Bunting). Adding to this confusion is the question of rare birds that were not accepted by certain reports committees, such as Red-footed Falcon. Excluding all of those species that have even the suggestion of doubt over their identification or status as a genuine wild bird whittles the list down to something like 245, this including truly naturalised species like the Ruddy Duck. The true figure is likely to be somewhere between the two, however, and I would tentatively put it around the 250 mark. Of this number, at least 84 are known to have bred within the Hull area in the last 50 years. A further dozen or so either possibly bred within that period or were certainly breeding beyond it. The number of regularly breeding birds, those that nest in the Hull area in all or most years, is around 69. Several species included in the latter are just hanging on by a toehold after long term declines and are likely to be lost in the near future. Some, such as the Lesser Redpoll, may have already been lost as regular breeding birds along with the Turtle Dove, Redshank and Snipe.
There are some notable omissions from the systematic list. Regular east coast migrants such as Bluethroat, Common Rosefinch, Barred Warbler and Sooty Shearwater have never been recorded in the Hull area. Vagrants such as Ring-necked Duck, Pectoral Sandpiper, Glossy Ibis, Alpine Swift, Serin and Woodchat Shrike might also have been expected to have turned up at some point during the last century or so. Other birds, such as Raven, Stone Curlew and Great Bustard probably occurred in the dim and distant past but are highly unlikely to do so now. Having said that, I would have listed Red Kite there a few years ago and look at them now (see the entry for that species). That is one of the joys of birdwatching – you never know what will turn up next. Who, though, could have predicted that the Hull area would be able to claim such exotic species as White-tailed Eagle, Pallas’s Sandgrouse, Laughing Gull, White-billed Diver, Little Bustard and, perhaps, Long-billed Dowitcher and White-throated Sparrow? As one Hull birder said to me many years ago, “any bird can turn up anywhere”.
Richard K Broughton
Hull, August 2001
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank: Peter Bonavia; the monthly journal British Birds; Joyce Broughton; Matthew Broughton; the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Joe Curl; Geoff Dobbs and the Hull Valley Wildlife Group; Ray Eades; Brian Fendley; Michael Flowers; Laura Gundy; Steve Howard and Kingston Press, Samantha Jackson; Rick Lyon and the Hull Daily Mail; Richard Middleton and the Hull Natural History Society; Paul Milsom; Brett Richards; the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union.