Forest Conservation Centre. Wallace's 1971 survey also had a quantitative base,
but dealt with the winter community only.
From the historical records, it is possible to divide the bird records of the
period since 1800 and obtain a picture of the status of the bird population in the
Forest (a) up to c. 1850, (b) between c. 1880 and 1900, (c) between c. 1932 and
1942, and (d) the present time (see Figure 1). For this purpose, the species have
been classified as either breeding, wintering or vagrant. The distinction between
"wintering" and "vagrant" species, however, is somewhat arbitary, depending
on the number of individuals involved, a species that winters in very low
numbers being classified as "vagrant". It is obvious that such a classification is
far from ideal, but it does at least indicate general trends. The major sources for
this compilation are Doubleday (1836), Buxton (1898), the unpublished
notebooks of Joseph Ross, Hudson and Pyman (1968), The Birds of the London
Area (1964), Wallace (1971), the annual records of the London Bird Report, the
reports of the Wren Conservation Group, plus unpublished data from the
British Trust for Ornithology and the Epping Forest Conservation Centre.
The resulting figures reveal an interesting pattern. In the early part of the
nineteenth century the records indicate a total of 85 species breeding in the
Forest; by the end of the century this had fallen to 82; between 1932 and 1942
the corresponding number was 70, whereas at the present time it is 69. During
the same period there has been no significant change in the number of wintering
species. Vagrants are of little significance, probably reflecting a combination of
unusual weather conditions and keen observers.
It is, however, dangerous to draw anything other than the most tentative
conclusions from data of this kind, for the information is obviously partial and,
for the most part, qualitative. Of the species lost from the Forest since
Doubleday's time, several — e.g. sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus), buzzard
(Buteo buteo), peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), nightjar (Caprimulgus
europaeus), nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), wryneck (Jynx torquilla) and
red-backed shrike — have shown a decrease over the country as a whole
(Parslow, 1973). The decline of the peregrine falcon and sparrow hawk, due to
persecution and changing agricultural practice, is well established; the buzzard
had already ceased to breed in the area during the time of Doubleday's ob-
servations; the wryneck, nightingale and red-backed shrike are all on the edge
of their range in southern Britain (Voous, 1960). The same is true of the
Woodlark (Lullula arborea) and it is significant that this species, together with
the red-backed shrike, flourished in the Forest around the period of the 1939-
1945 war. Although the loss of the shrikes from the Forest was blamed on the
cutting of scrub in 1949 (London Natural History Society, 1964), they had
similarly declined throughout Essex (Hudson and Pyman, 1968) and Middlesex.
The history of the Woodlark in the Forest is particularly interesting, for its
loss from the area since the end of the 1939-1945 war appears to be part of a
long-term pattern of fluctuation, the causes of which are obscure. As early as
1832 Doubleday commented that the bird had become rare, and that he had
never seen it wild. This seems to imply that it had been more common at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Yet by 1839 Doubleday was able to note
7