Speaker: Chris Durdin
Report: Steph Plaster

May’s talk was by Chris Durdin from Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays who is also a local ornithologist (ex RSPB), a singer in a Norwich barbershop quartet (Mustard) and also a tour guide at Thorpe
Marshes for the NWT. He eloquently told us about the wonderful story of how the Common Crane (Grus grus), Britain’s tallest bird, made a natural return (not an artificial reintroduction) to Norfolk in the late 1970’s. Cranes were once a common feature of the British countryside back in the middle ages, but sadly they were extinct as a breeding bird in the UK by around the 1600’s. The talk was based on the book ‘The Norfolk Cranes’ Story’ which was written by John Buxton MBE (1927- 2014) and Chris Durdin and first published in 2011 with a later edition with an obituary for John Buxton published in 2019.

Speaker: Nick Acheson​
Report: Sue Gale

When we have a talk from Nick Acheson, we are confident that it will be both entertaining and packed with information. This evening’s talk was no exception, and that wealth of information makes a detailed report impractical. It would fill a few newsletters! So, I will just outline the framework of the talk.

Speaker: Dawn Balmer
Report: Sue Gale

​In March we were lucky to have Dawn Balmer, Chair of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP) to come and talk to us about the work that it does. She discussed the difficulty of producing an atlas and reports about rare breeding birds while protecting the birds from undue disturbance. She was at pains to assure us that any reports made to the panel would be entirely confidential and safe for the birds. Four different categories are used to classify the rarity of the birds included and Dawn gave us examples of each.

Speaker: Steve Cale
Reporter: Sue Gale

In 2019 Steve Cale took a boat trip to Antarctica, very much inspired by the stories his grandfather used to tell him about the famous Antarctic explorers. In particular, the bird drawings and research of Wilson, one of the last men with Scott on the ill-fated expedition, stimulated the young Steve to study and to draw birds. The tour started in Southern Argentina, where some unexpected spare time allowed a visit to the Black Lagoon, a sewage works, where Steve saw Chilean Flamingos and rafts of Red Shoveler drakes. Silvery and White-tufted Grebes were on the lake in town. Next day they embarked from Puerto Madrid, heading for the Falkland Islands. Giant Petrels kept them company for the two days at sea, and as they neared the Falklands, Albatrosses began to appear - mainly the Black-browed Albatross at this point. Also the first of many species of Prions were seen – a group of birds many of us had never heard of but which featured large in this voyage.

​Speaker: Steve Stansfield
Reporter: Sue Gale

Steve Stansfield lives in Norfolk for the winter, but since 1998 he has lived and worked on Bardsey Island (Enlli) for the rest of each year. He is now Director of Operations and works closely with Bangor University to study the Manx Shearwaters. He started his talk with a recording of the wonderful cries of tens of thousands of Manxies, which happen all night every night from March to September. Such an evocative way to start a talk, even if it did leave us wondering how anyone got any sleep. On a clear night it would obviously be a pleasure to be awake – Bardsey is now an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, the only place in Europe to boast such a designation. It would be worth a visit just to see the Milky Way on all its glory.