Ian has been a keen photographer for many years and has had considerable success in photographic competitions all over the world. His main interests are photographing wildlife and steam trains.

The travelogue is about a journey from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth in South Africa to watch the cricket Test Match!  He hired a guide and travelled  from Johannesburg – on South Africa’s interior plateaux – down to the south-eastern coast. The trip was designed to traverse a variety of different birding habitats with an array of photographic opportunities on offer. They visited grassy Karoo locations, thornveld, high altitude mountains, Afromontane forest, coastal estuaries, coastal bush and grasslands. The journey took 7 days and we covered 1000 miles and the objective was good photographs rather than maximum number of species, but he saw many endemic and rare birds.

Jeff has enjoyed bird-watching all of his life. He worked as a teacher of Information Technology and has been lecturing about wildlife since 1980 on such topics as Ecuador, New Zealand, Australia and Bird Families. He has travelled widely and his concentration on South America in the 90’s led him to be one of the founder committee members of the Neotropical Bird Club. His interests broadened to all aspects of wildlife and more recently he has been recording wildlife in Finnmark.

This talk highlights the superb birds seen on a trip to south-west China in the winter. Yunnan has a varied landscape with snow-capped mountains, lakes, deep gorges and rich sub-tropical forest in the south. At first, visiting in winter, would appear an unusual idea, but the lowland forests along the Burmese border hold a strong resident avifauna and the region is the wintering ground for migrants from nearly all points of the compass. Many of the miss-placed eastern rarities that reach the UK shores in the autumn were headed for the forests of Yunnan to join the laughing-thrushes and pheasants that grace the remaining forests.

Our own Chris Foster will give us an informative talk on how our very important bird guides originated.

Our Photographic Competition is being held by Zoom this year! Members can show us the photos of birds they have been seeing in any or all of three categories – Portrait, Flight and Action and a new category – Birds in Berkshire.

Carl is a qualified ornithologist, has a diploma in photography and is chairman of the oldest natural history organisation in the county of Norfolk amongst other things! He takes a look at birds by their habitat, talking about why most species of bird are found only in particular habitats.

Campbell is head of research at the Hawk Conservancy and a part-time lecturer at Reading University. The Conservancy is a truly wonderful place to visit to see these endangered vultures.

He will tell us more of the raptor conservation issues that I’m sure we’re all only too aware of.

Mary has volunteered with the RSPB for well over 20 years and now works with the Farnham and Hazeley Heath RSPB reserves.

Her talk focuses on the Tisza flood plain, the Great Hungarian Plain and the reedbeds and ponds of the Hortobagy National Park seeing a variety of herons, woodpeckers, waders ,birds of prey and songbirds!

Steve is a qualified garden designer and soft landscaper with 28 years experience  specialising in creating Wildlife Gardens. He has also been a lecturer and adult education tutor for over 25 years, lecturing at the British Birdwatching Fair annually by invitation and has now worked part time for the RSPB as a Community Talks Officer and Project Manager for two years based in the East Anglian region. He is now the proprietor of Greenspaces – Bird and Wildlife Watching Trips and Tours in the UK.

There are nearly 100 reserves in Lincolnshire and it’s not all flat !   No natural water apart from its rivers but a wealth of man made waterbodies. Boasting Britain’s favourite bird reserve at RSPB Frampton situated on Britain’s most important estuary – The Wash.  Inland the nationally important Lincolnshire Limewoods . As a county it has a wide and varied selection of habitats which are reflected in its fauna and flora. Steven will tell us how the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is helping to secure the future of many important habitats and species.

Our speaker spent nearly a year in the south of France near the Camargue which is a natural region located south of Arles, between the Mediterranean and the two arms of the Rhone delta and is home to more than 400 species of birds with so many iconic species to be seen :- Greater Flamingos, Pied Avocets, Black winged Stilts, Purple Herons, Kentish Plovers, Black necked Grebes, Collared Pratincoles etc.!

Please join us for a different christmas social! We’ll have three contrasting talks – one by Fraser Cottington on the exciting developments at the Lavell’s Wetland Trust, Renton will tell us of the  importance of bird surveys in Berkshire and as a bonus, we’ll get to see the beautiful birds of Costa Rica in a lovely talk by Tony Hayward!

As we are unable to hold meetings indoors due to covid precautions, this meeting will be held online via Zoom. Members will be sent the Zoom link by email a few days before the talk.