Robin Prytherch died in 2021 and we lost a stalwart of British and Bristol ornithology. As I grew up in Bristol as a teenage birder Robin Prytherch was a leading light in the Bristol Ornithological Club, he had designed its logo on the club’s founding in 1966 and the subject was a Pied-billed Grebe which Robin himself had found, a new bird for the UK, at Blagdon Lake in 1963. His day job was in the BBC Natural History Unit in Whiteladies Road.
My first radio interview was on the newly launched BBC Radio Bristol with a couple of schoolmates with Robin asking us questions about our hobby of birdwatching. He was very gentle with us as 12 or 13 year olds and we thought he was a very kind, nice old man – I realise now that he must have been 31 at the time!
This short book collects together 26 Christmas cards, all Buzzard-themed with illustrations of the Buzzards in his study area of the Gordano Valley just southwest of Bristol – it’s the area you pass through on the M4 south of the River Avon. Those Christmas cards contained information on the individual Buzzards which were illustrated. Robin’s study documented an increase from 19 territories in 1988 to 120 in 2020 – perhaps the highest density of this species anywhere in its wide international range.
The study was a great achievement of dedication and skilful observation, the findings were important and interesting, his drawings were in a recognisable style and showed the wide variation in plumage between birds.
Robin was on the board of the journal British Birds for many years, for something over three decades, and every Bird Fair I would seek him out for a chat about birds, Bristol and Buzzards.
I broke my fairly firm habit of saying ‘no’ to requests for endorsements for book jackets (I write reviews – I don’t need to see my name and five words of mine on somebody else’s book) for this book. This is a charming book of collected writings about Buzzards by a charming man.
The cover? I can’t see that there is anything wrong with that. I’d give it 8/10.
Robin Prytherch, A Life with Buzzards is compiled and edited by Lyndon Roberts and published by Bristol Books.
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