Collingwood’s earliest surviving sketch, nest and nestlings in a blossoming tree.

 A home full of birds

Although Collingwood was born in London and had a home there, he spent much of his boyhood at the family’s second, seaside, home at Westgate-on-Sea.  The naturalist Jenner Weir visited the family there in 1891, when Collingwood was ten.[1] Writing of the difficulty in keeping normally free-flying birds in captivity, Jenner Weir wrote that William Ingram had successfully solved this difficulty by keeping his birds in very large cages, in aviaries, in the walled garden and in the house, all with unclipped wings. Jemmer Weir wrote …..

…… This note is not written for the ornithologist but for the Selbornian; it will not, therefore, be necessary to describe the numerous choice species which form the collection; but there is one class of birds in which Mr. Ingram is particularly rich – he has ten albinos, viz., three white Jackdaws, three white Blackbirds, a white Thrush, a white Starling, a white Hedge Sparrow, and what I believe to be a pure white variety of the Herring Gull caught in the neighbourhood. Of these, one of the Blackbirds and the Hedge Sparrow have pink eyes…….

…… It is of the Jackdaws I wish to give an account. These are most sagacious birds, and have their full liberty and perfect power of flight; they are singularly lively, their soft blue eyes are very conspicuous against the whiteness of their heads, but they differ very much in disposition. On my first visit to Mr Ingram, the tamest of these birds, ‘Darling’ also the most inquisitive, seeing I was a stranger, flew after me into the drawing room, and sat on the pole of the curtain, eyeing me in a knowing manner, then flew on the table, picked up a letter, examined it, and apparently seeing no more to excite her curiosity, flew out of the door. If you appeared to be investigating anything in the grounds, in a fraction of a minute she was at your side; if you sat down she at once occupied one of the arms of the seat; if you went up a tower in the pleasance, as soon as you reached the top of the staircase she was there; she would go with the members of the family to the sea shore and follow them about. What is even more wonderful, this affectionate bird is taken by Mr Ingram in the autumn to Over Silton, in Yorkshire, where she takes long walks with Mrs Ingram, flying from tree to tree. Upon the whole I deem this white Jackdaw to be the most charming bird it was ever my good fortune to meet with.

         Mr. Ingram’s son, Mr. Collingwood, has a subtle power over birds, and appears able to make them love him. He took me into a room where he had some Blue Tits; these sweet little birds flew on to my hand, and in the most fearless manner looked in my face, then flew on to his hand and devoured a cherry…….

This was the extraordinary home background of the boy who became an exceptional ornithologist.

[1] The Selborne Magazine, 1891.