The first meeting in the New Year will be our annual Bird Count on Sunday January 7^th. The idea of the count is to find as many different species as possible in our recording area between 8am and 4.30pm.

Don’t worry you don’t have to be bird watching all that time, you can start at any time and anywhere in the valley after 8am but you must finish by 4.30pm. The finishing point is the bar of the Bridge Inn, Lenwade. It is a team event – teams can consist of 2 to 4 members who have a cross section of bird watching experience. In other words we don’t want teams of very experienced birders!

A reminder of the rules again

· You can start anywhere within the WVBS area

· All species counted must be seen or heard

· In teams of two all must see or hear each species counted

· In teams of three, 2 must see or hear each species counted

· In teams of four, 3 must see or hear each species counted

· The finish time is 4.30pm, inside the Bridge Inn, Lenwade.

· Feral pigeons are accepted, hybrid waterfowl are not.

· Birds within the grounds of Pensthorpe are not accepted

Each team will be supplied with a checklist to tick off the species seen but it would be useful to add the location for our record purposes.

This is a fun event so please come along and enjoy yourselves.

If you wish to take part or are short of team members please let Alwyn know.

Josh Leeder (01603-872660), Alwyn Jackson (01362-637752), Colin Fenn (01362-697783) and Ray Gribble (01603-872709) are planning to enter teams and need team members. If you are interested in joining in please contact them directly.