These records span the years from 1929 to 1966, almost all in Suffolk and complete except for the five years of World War Two and a year and a half in the 1950s. The 1929 records cover just seventeen pages of a six by four inch exercise book “supplied for the public service” but other years are more detailed, often divided into two exercise books. The majority of the listed sightings are of birds and it is interesting to see what has been lost from specific areas, and sometimes what has been gained. There are also references to species using names long gone from official recording: humble-bees, yellow bunting, kestrel-hawk, golden-crested wren for example.

The 1929 records include lists of nests of sixteen species of birds, dates of arrival of summer migrants, sightings of wryneck and lesser whitethroat, and, on May 19 th watching a weasel catch eight mice in twenty minutes in the Chantry area of Ipswich. There was no housing estate at Chantry in those days and the 1930 records for the area include kingfisher, young barn owl, tree pipit and linnet. Another tree pipit was recorded at Westerfield plus a red-backed shrike, at that time a more common bird in Suffolk. On June 9 th of the same year he records “had day out with the otter hounds, meet was at Sproughton, finishing at Claydon without a find”. In those days otters were more plentiful. His 1958 records include an entry on February 23 rd describing an otter playing in Benacre Broad, swimming and diving, in view all the time – on a day when he also recorded Bewick swan and Slavonian grebe.

Walter lived in Caithness Close, Ipswich and ‘Curly’ Curtis, who was given the diaries on Walter’s death, first met him when he delivered post to Heath Road hospital where Walter worked as a telephonist. They became good friends, going on many ‘birding’ trips together, particularly in the Playford area where ringing of birds took place. The Playford entry on December 6 th 1958 reads:

“A splendid view of it (water rail) as it searched for food in the small brook, vigorously turning over leaves with its long bill. A very nervous bird. Once it left the brook to creep through the undergrowth on the bank but turned back, ran across the water and tried the other side, from where it ran across the footpath into the swamp”.

Despite travelling to most places by bicycle Walter observed at all hours. On May 3rd and 4 th 1958 at Waldringfield on a night of full moon and sharp frost, when despite having a blanket he had to “get up and walk about for an hour to get some warmth and feeling into my legs and feet” and was rewarded with hearing calls of stone curlew, nightingale and red-legged partridge and watching a barn owl go to roost at daybreak.

The diaries are also interesting for the frequency of sightings of animals such as hares and water voles, hearing nightjars reeling at Foxhall and listing the red-backed shrike right up to and including 1966, the final year of records, with one in Ipswich cemetery in 1964, one at Foxhall in 1965 and a Minsmere record in 1966.

‘Curly’ Curtis has already passed the diaries on to several other people to read and has now donated them to the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society. This is only a brief analysis and anyone wanting to read them, and hopefully do a deeper study, should contact Martin Sanford at SBRC.