Yumpu_ May_June 2017_02

The Flying Duchess
The Flying Duchess
The Flying Duchess
David Saunders traces the life of an avian- and aviation-enthusiast
My story starts far from the Scottish islands, when, some 25 years ago I was being
driven at breakneck speed across the massive Castlemartin tank range, south
Pembrokeshire. The driver, the Assistant Range Officer - affectionately named the
‘Monocled Major’ - appreciating my ornithological interest suddenly said, taking his eye
off the track in front, “Do you know Saunders? Do you know! My great aunt once shot a
warbler that had not been seen in Great Britain before!”
I was disappointed that he could not tell me more, other than to say his great aunt was
the Duchess of Bedford, and the event took place on Fair Isle. The warbler, so I subsequently
discovered, was first observed skulking among turnips on 29 September 1910 and the
following day collected, following ‘a great hunt.’ Even then its identity remained a mystery
and so the skin was sent to the eminent ornithologist, William Eagle Clarke, at the Royal
Scottish Museum.
Suspecting it to be a Blyth’s Warbler he passed the specimen on to Ernst Hartert, Director
of the museum at Tring, Hertfordshire who confirmed identification. Named after Edward
Blyth, the breeding bird is to be found from southern Sweden and eastern Poland to
Afghanistan and the Pamirs. Its winter months are spent from the foothills of the Himalayas
to Sri Lanka.
‘Among the most enigmatic of birds on the British list’ the next Blyth’s warbler was not
reported until 1928, also from Fair Isle, then a gap of 51 years until one was caught and
ringed on Holm, Orkney in October 1979. Since then there have been recordings in most
years, the majority from Scottish islands.
Brought up by an Aunt
Born in 1865, the great aunt in question was the second daughter of the Reverend Walter
Tribe, vicar of Stockbridge, Hampshire and christened Mary du Caurroy. She was just two
years old when her father was appointed to a position in India. Mary and her older sister
would not accompany them, instead were brought up by an aunt in England.
Her education included Cheltenham Ladies College and a year in Switzerland before,
aged 16, she sailed to join her parents. Shortly after arriving in Lahore she caught typhoid
and although making a full recovery, attributed the illness to the deafness which in later
years increasingly troubled her.
In 1885, at the Rawalpindi Durbar, Mary met Lord Herbrand Russell, second son of the
Duke of Bedford. Their engagement was announced two years later at a Viceregal Ball in
Simla. They were married in January 1888 and their only child, a son, was born the
following December.
36 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017
MAY / JUNE 2017 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 37