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Wednesday, 23 November 2011

Indoor Meeting - Reserved for Birds

After this talk I felt that members have good reason to be proud of the RSPB for its work in safeguarding our wildlife heritage. Not many, I suspect, would have been aware of the fact that it looks after more than 200 reserves across the UK (covering almost 130,000 hectares, I understand, and home to about 80 per cent of our rarest birds). Approximately half are owned outright, the remainder being leased or subject to management agreements. And they cover a wide variety of habitats, which was the way they were categorised in Brian's well-received presentation. Taking a few at random, reserves at Minsmere, Titchwell Marsh and Pulborough Brooks would doubtless have been familiar to many in the audience, but it was educational to hear about places further afield such as Dinas in Wales (for dipper and pied flycatcher), Loch Gruinart on Islay (for white-fronted goose), Birsay Moors in Orkney (for red throated diver) and Coquet Island off Northumberland (for roseate tern). There were some very good photographs too, not only of birds but also of red deer, adder, bee orchid and swallowtail butterfly for instance. Brian ended his talk with an engaging picture of a puffin with its beak stuffed with fish, but for me the best images of the evening were those of the long-eared owl at Northward Hill, a slavonian grebe at Dungeness (the biggest shingle beach in Europe, incidentally), the crowded gannetry at Bempton Cliffs and a gorgeous black guillemot in summer plumage at Sumburgh Head in Shetland.

Brian Shreeve