Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Inn Search of Birds: pubs, people and places

Sir John Lawton

Most birders record the species they have seen, but hardly any keep lists of pub birds, that is birds on pub signs and names. This talk is about these birds, their natural histories, folk-histories, and the stories of the pubs that bear their names. The resulting aviary of 117 species doesn’t quite range from A to Z, but it does run from The Blackbird on Earls Court Road to a Yellow Wagtail in Yeovil. The species involved are not a random sample of the UK avifauna but share a number of very distinct characteristics.

Doors open 6pm for a 6.30pm event start.   Venue: Micklegate Social

Copies of the book “Inn Search of Birds” will be on sale for the special price of £16 cash only.

Member’s report

John Lawton started the evening by saying this was not a serious lecture before moving on to his impressive database of pubs with bird or bird related signs. He had been inspired to start his quest by four pubs named the Black Swan in Wensleydale all within a five mile radius. John admitted that he was not the first to publish similar books or articles, taking us back to Steve Shaw’s list in Birds Britannica (2005), T. Hyde Parker in The Naturalist (1940), W.B. Alexander’s Bird Notes (1953), possibly inspired by Richard Fitter who himself published a single page article in the Birmingham Post.

John took us through the 13 most common birds appearing on pub signs, which interestingly corresponded closely to those found in Aesop’s fables and the plays of Aristophanes. Why do swans dominate the list? Possibly because they are large, aggressive, fearless and above all, royal. They are followed by the similarly aggressive raptors, game birds, ducks, geese, corbies and finally peacocks.

Other signs relate to art, literature and music, a good example of which is The Owl and the Pussycat, while The Owl and Hitchhiker reflects the patronage of two authors, Edward Lear and Douglas Adams. Several of these are graced with extremely artistic pub signs. Few, however, show female birds with the notable exception of The Peahen in St Albans dating back to at least 1480. Significantly, in spite of their popularity, there are no penguin pub signs and in fact there are relatively few non-native birds with the exception of pelicans and storks. In order to make the list it seems that the bigger the bird the more likely it is that they will feature so that leaves little hope for our more common garden birds such as robins, wrens and thrushes.

Dorothy Nott