Bygone birding: it seemed like a good idea at the time but introduction of Nightingales to Australia did not go well

                                                                          

Edward Wilson - songbird enthusiast

HOW would Nightingales fare if they were to be introduced to Australia?

This is unthinkable now - not just on ethical and practical grounds, but also because of worldwide legal restrictions on translocating wildlife.

But rewind some 170 years.

That was when a London-born, Melbourne-based newspaper-publisher and bird enthusiast named Edward Wilson had a dream.

Lamenting what he called "the comparative silence" of Australia's woods and gardens", he  made it his mission to import and release into the wilds of  the state of Victoria British songbirds - among them, Song Thrushes, Blackbirds and Skylarks.

But the species that figured most strongly in his aspirations was the Nightingale - not least because its song had been part of the soundtrack of summers in Hampstead where he grew up.

It was in this same leafy north London suburb that, having been entranced by the song of one particular bird, John Keats had, in 1819, composed Ode to a Nightingale. 

Perhaps, at least sub-consciously, Wilson was also paying homage to the great poet.

In 1857, Project Nightingale - featuring five birds  - was launched, subsequently to be described by Wilson in a fascinating presentation to the Philosophical Institute of Victoria.

He had reportedly paid "four or five pounds" for each of the specimens from an English dealer, named Brown, who had been investigating whether there might be commercial potential in bird trade between Britain and the various states of Australia. 

Already Brown had piloted the introduction Down Under of a modest number of a  variety of  species including Starlings, Goldfinches, Linnets,  Robins, Woodlarks and Chaffinches.

Despite the rigours of such a long jouney by sea, he claimed that not one bird had died, his only loss having been a Blackbird which escaped its cage and flew out to sea.

But the newly-arrived Nightingales were to  provide a special challenge  as Wilson explained to his audience.

Said he: "The birds were conveyed to the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne and placed in a large cage that had been prepared for them. 

"But almost the first night, the native cats attacked them, killing one, and slightly injuring one of the others. 

"Having made arrangements to prevent a repetition of the attacks, we left them for a few days to accustom them to the cage, and we then let them out as quietly as possible.

"While watching them after their liberation, we found, to our great dismay, that only two out of the four could fly and that the others ran along the ground in so helpless a condition as to render themselves very liable to injury from an enemy of any kind. 

"With some little difficulty we caught these two again and found their wings in so ragged a state from their restless habits in their small cages that it was no wonder that flying was out of the question. 

"We got their wings pulled, and I took charge of them until such time as the feathers had grown again.

"But one of them was either ill or had got injured, and he died the next day.

"The  other, after having lived apparently healthy, but in a curiously ragged condition for several months, seemed to find one of our frosty nights too cold for it, and, although eating heartily the day before and sheltered in a tolerably warm room, it was found dead in the morning.

"The two which were left in the gardens were seen once or twice, and, on  several occasions, passers-by said that they had been heard to sing. 

"For some time, no news was received of them, but the Nightingale is, however, a very shy bird. 

"It lurks in the most leafy recesses of the thicket, and scores of them might hide themselves in so suitable a place for their reception as is furnished by some portion of the Botanical Gardens, without giving any note of their whereabouts." 

Wilson continued: "A short time ago, however, I was delighted to hear that one of them had been both seen and heard singing, by Mr. Wilhelme, a German gentleman engaged at the Botanical Gardens. 

"I called upon Mr. Wilhelme, and he showed me the precise tree near his cottage where it had been perched. 

"It had appeared very healthy, sang cheerfully and was a Nightingale. Of this, Mr. Wilhelme had no doubt whatsoever. 

"He is a gentleman of education and respectability, and he has lived in parts of Germany in which the Nightingale is quite common."

Next to the pleasure of being told that one of the birds had apparently been "doing well", Wilson expressed surprise that it had shown "no disposition to obey its natural instinct of migration".

Wilson acknowledged that an experiment with Nightingales on such a small scale was "scarcely likely to have been successful", and it is not known if he ever sought to replicate it in subsequent years.

However, far from being disillusioned, his commitment to introducing birds and other wildlife from Europe and other continents was undimmed, and four years later, he founded the Victorian Acclimatisation Society with the catchline: "If it lives, we want it."

He saw it  almost as a moral mission duty to introduce not just birds but also  other creatures, including salmon and trout, plus plants such as thistles. 

Wilson's  intiative was backed by the Victorian State Government to the extent that it even contributed £500  towards his personal expenses and employment of an agent in London not just of birds but of other creatures, including salmon and trout, plus plants such as thistles. 

Support is also said to have come from Queen Victoria who agreed for birds to be trapped and taken from the grounds of Windsor Castle and even Red Deer from the estate agt Balmoral.

Such was the enthusiasm in Australia that similar acclimatisation societies were established in others states, among them Queensland nd New South Wales, the motivation partly being nostalgia for the sights and sounds of Britain and partly the prospect that songbirds would prey on insects injurious to crops.  

Entrusted to seamen, who will have had other concerns more pressing than the welfare of captive birds, the toll of fatalities is likely to have been huge.

Many thousands of birds (and other creatures) will have perished en route to Australia from various other parts of the empire and from continental Europe.

Fast forward a decade, and the dream of Wilson was fading as was his health. He returned to England where he believed medical care -specifically for treatment to the cataracts that were impairing his vision - would be superior to than that in his  adopted homeland.

In Sustralia, species such as Starlings and House Sparrows that had once been welcomed gradually became resented. Far from being caterpillar-devouring benefactors of fruit and other crops they often proved problematical, pecking at the fruit they were supposed to safegaurd and, in some cases, out-competeing native Australian wildlife.

The impact on food crops of rabbits proved esspecially devastating. 

It was almost inevitable that the  acclimatisation society movement should collapse and, in 1872,  the one founded by Wilson folded into Royal Zoological and Acclimatisation Society which was, in essence, to beome a zoo.

To this day, Australia is still living with the consequences of a project that though well-intended,with the benefit of hindsight, now  looks to have been remarkably foolish.

Whether this was ever acknowledged by Wilson is not known.

After he died, aged 64 , at his home in Bromley, Kent, on January 10, 1878, his remains made the same sea crossing as those five British Nightingales - all the way to Australia where they were buried in Melbourne.