Birds in a Cage

In 1940 and 1941, four young British servicemen, each on their first mission, were taken prisoner by the German army. This was to be the end of fighting for them. They remained in captivity until the end of the war, being moved between various camps in occupied Europe. It was the beginning of a different story, however – one that demonstrates just how important birds can be.

John Buxton, Peter Conder, John Barrett and George Waterston would go on to become giants of British ornithology, but in 1941 they were just young men trying to survive in desperately hard conditions – the constant fear of death, the overcrowding, the hunger, the cold, the ever-present fleas and mites, but most of all the stultifying boredom. The stark realities of being a prisoner of war are made clear in Derek Niemann’s very readable prose.

The four men all turned to birds to give their lives meaning. During migration periods they watched the skies, counting the sometimes huge numbers of corvids, cranes, larks and more that passed overhead. In spring they built nestboxes and studied the breeding patterns of any birds that nested within the wires of their POW camps. Buxton chose to survey Common Redstart. His incredibly detailed notes were later to become the basis for The Redstart, a Collins New Naturalist monograph.

The men continued with their studies throughout their imprisonment, often to the derision of their peers and with harassment from their guards. They corresponded with ornithologists in Britain and Germany – this latter at great risk to both themselves and their correspondents, who could have been accused of treason.

One of the pitfalls a modern-day biographer can fall into is ascribing modern-day motivations to their subjects which can seem out of place. However, without a psychological element, the book is just a list of life events. Niemann has managed to avoid this by extensive use of the notes, diaries, journals and letters of his four main subjects, as well as men they were interred with, and interviews with relatives.

Much of this biography is hard to read. The prisoners’ treatment at the hands of their captives is often brutal and arbitrary – Buxton was rendered diabetic and sterile by his POW experience. Some passages are heartbreaking. But this is a wonderful book, with humour amid the horror, and a testament to four men who survived a terrible ordeal by dedicating themselves to the scientific study of birds.