'Sussex has lost so much of our wonderful birdlife'

So much of our once abundant local birdlife has been destroyed.

According to Mrs Merrifield's Natural History of Brighton (1860), the nightingale was formerly common here.

"During the spring the Queen's Park rings with its melodious notes; a male specimen was taken in May 1855 in the garden of Brunswick Square."

You won't find any there now.

The Victorians have much to answer for, with their traps, nets, cages and guns.

Larks and wheatears were massacred by the thousand and sold by all the Brighton poulterers. It's incredible to recall that at the onset of winter, according to J A Erredge in 1862, "immense flocks of larks come coasting along. The numbers that pass over Brighton are incredible, they sometimes extend to millions a day, as from early light to dusk there is a continued stream, at least a quarter of a mile wide".

Skylarks are currently on the conservation red list.

Taxidermists and "sportsmen" such as Edward Booth of Dyke Road, George Swaysland of Queen's Road, Robert Brazenor of Lewes Road, and Pratt's of

Cranbourne Street, were out daily shooting hoopoes, ospreys, avocets, storm petrels, gannets, ruffs, ring ousels, ortolan buntings, white-tailed sea-eagles, red-necked grebes, and other unimaginable rarities to add to their collections.

Boys would catch gulls with "click" baits, with their wings cut, they were kept as garden pets. There used to be so many swallows massing in the

trees in Preston Road that "boys amused themselves with knocking them down with stones".

A large colony of rooks nested in the Pavilion Gardens. Once a year the local tradesmen were permitted to shoot those in Stanmer Park: in 1855 they shot 350.

According to W H Hudson, during the 19th century more bird species were eradicated in Sussex than in any other county.

By 1900, raven, kite, harrier, buzzard, bustard, bittern, spoonbill, stone curlew, chough, guillemot, razorbill, kittiwake and shag had all been wiped out.

Graham Chainey

Marine Parade

Brighton