WHEN Richard Fitter’s London’s Birds was published in 1949, it became the first book to deal exclusively with its eponymous subject for 25 years. Despite such a gap, birds have likely been studied more closely in London for a longer period of time than in any other city in the world. The first record of red kites in the city dates back to the Roman period.
appeared on bookshelves shortly after the Second World War and, as a result, was full of references to birds exploiting bomb sites for nesting and feeding opportunities. Pigeons lived in the dining rooms of damaged Mayfair
