Speaker: Neil Calbrade
Reporter: Cath Robinson
Neil has been working for the BTO for many years and is the Waterbirds Surveys Officer. These surveys cover : WeBS and also the Goose and Swan Monitoring Programme: GSMP. The BTO does love its acronyms....

Speaker: Colin Smith
Reporter: Sue Gale

For Colin Smith the main attraction of a visit to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania is the chance to see European Brown Bears. And he wasn’t disappointed. From a hide set up by local people no fewer than 8 Brown Bears came to the bait. Colin had wonderful views and photos of the bears, including of one very nervous female with her cubs. A fox that was missing its tail also showed up. The mountains of Romania are also home to Wolves and Lynx, but these were not part of this trip. Colin did see Spotted Nutcrackers in the pines, and Red-
backed Shrikes, along with a tiny Yellow-belted Toad.

Speaker: Matt Wickens
Reporter: Cath Robinson
Matt is in the relatively new post of Urban Reserve Manager of the NWT and gave us a history and description of the new Sweet Briar Marshes reserve close to the centre of Norwich. It comprises 90 acres of fen, rough meadows, grazing marsh, young hedgerows and young
woodland. One third is an SSSI on the basis of species rich grassland and the rest is designated as a County Wildlife Site. It was purchased recently (2022) by NWT following a public appeal. £600,000 was raised in only 4 months.

Speaker: Drew Lyness
Reporter: Sue Gale

Drew Lyness is an old friend of the club, and for our June meeting he gave us an entertaining account of two recent birding holidays in Europe. For the first holiday, the cold one, Drew gave us a cautionary tale about a few days in Estonia in mid-March. It started well. Landing in Tallin they could see that much of the winter’s snow had melted, and they made straight for the iconic island of Saaremaa. They met with 1000s of European White-fronted Geese (we see them here in small numbers), plus the occasional Tundra Bean Goose and pairs of Cranes everywhere. Getting there on a ferry with prodigious amounts of food available (!) they could see ice still on the estuaries, plenty of Smew and Goosander, White-tailed Eagles from the deck and a single Rough-legged Buzzard. Once they landed Drew’s friend Jake soon located a raft of Steller’s Eider Ducks. This is the most accessible place to see these special ducks. Inland they searched for Pygmy Owls in the dark before sleeping, only to wake up to the worst storm recorded at that time of year. Half of the island was without electricity and the other half had no water, but the ferry was still running. They made a bolt for it.

​Speaker: Jenny Donelan, BTO.
Reporter: Cath Robinson
Jenny is a BTO Training Officer who as part of her job creates and delivers educational materials and training activities to help with Bird identification and BTO surveys. She had an infectious enthusiasm about her role in communication and only at the end of her presentation told us she had never done it in this form before!