That was the title of the talk given by Roy Dennis at last night’s indoor meeting of the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club. A really entertaining talk covering, amongst other subjects, radio-tracking, migration and translocation projects. Roy was also selling, and signing, copies of his new book with the same title. The lecture theatre was as full as I’ve ever seen it; but you wouldn’t expect anything else with a high-profile speaker talking about raptors. At the North Terrace after the meeting Roy was chatting with a group of us about topics as diverse as Honey Buzzards, Hobbies and Pine Martens and the potential of Northumberland to hold breeding Ospreys and White-tailed Eagles. Hopefully it won’t be another 15 years before we have the opportunity to hear him speak in Northumberland again.
The first copies of Birds in Northumbria 2007 were also distributed at the meeting; it’s a very high quality annual report and first impressions are that the production is even better than in previous years. The quality of image reproduction in particular stood out. Congratulations to Ian Fisher and Steve Holliday who have the often thankless, and not necessarily enviable, task of editing it.
Well, it’s now 8am, there’s a heavy frost, the bird feeders are full and I’m away out to get some fresh air…