Maurice Bird: The Gilbert White of The Broads

The name Maurice Bird might not the most instantly recognisable, but it may be familiar to anyone who has read the author James Parry’s 2020 work (co-written with former BTO Director Dr Jeremy Greenwood) Emma Turner: A Life Looking at Birds. The Reverend Maurice Bird (1857–1924) was the Rector of Brunstead in Norfolk for over 30 years, and as a neighbour with shared interests in photography, ornithology, and natural history, he and his family were close friends with the pioneering photographer and ornithologist Emma Turner.

The Reverend Bird was a polymath, whose Norfolk-based interests ranged from birdlife to snakes, meteorology, and gardening (including his unsuccessful attempts to grow wild rice in the Norfolk Broads). He left behind an extensive archive of newspaper cuttings, photographs, notes, letters, and, most significantly, an almost unbroken run of diaries covering more than half a century. The archive has remained within the Bird family, and work on this biography was begun by the Reverend Bird’s great-granddaughter Alison Horne, who sadly passed away in 2014.

Maurice Bird: The Gilbert White of The Broads is the latest in the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists’ Society’s series of occasional publications, and James Parry uses the Reverend Bird’s own archive to tell the story of an intriguing figure who meticulously recorded his varied interests. The comparison to the Selborne naturalist of the title was first made by the Norfolk ornithologist Bernard Riviere in 1924, and parallels between the two become apparent throughout. Coming in at 140 pages it is a short book, but its six chapters (focusing on the Reverend Bird’s personal life, his role in the community, his published writings, his diaries, the significant people who feature in his writing, and his legacy) bring to life the words of a skilled observer of natural history, who for many years was an important fixture in the landscape of The Broads.

Book reviewed by Lesley Hindley