Report: Steph Plaster

Nicholas Watts is a farmer who has consciously worked very hard to increase and conserve the wildlife at Vine House Farm in Deeping St Nicholas, Lincolnshire. We were treated to an extremely interesting talk by Nicholas who spoke about the history of the farm and agricultural practices that have changed over the years.

Report: Cath Robinson

The BTO seems to have an endless supply of excellent, enthusiastic (and often young) speakers who have entertained us over the years, and Susan is another. She recently joined the Garden Birdwatch team and gave us a review of the history and the science of the survey.

​Report by Steph Plaster
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George Baldock is the Warden at the NWT’s flagship reserve of Cley and Salthouse Marshes and is also now temporarily looking after the NWT Holme reserve too. He’s been the warden at Cley for nearly nine years, and he kindly agreed to come and talk to the group about the vital work that is carried out there.

Speaker: Conor Mark Jameson
Reporter: Cath Robinson

The club was very happy to welcome Conor back after his stimulating talk on The Goshawk in 2022. This time he was talking about his book: Finding W. H. Hudson, a rather extraordinary naturalist born in South America in 1841. After a childhood on the wild pampas of Argentina and then becoming a gaucho, he travelled to the UK - at one-point homeless sleeping in Hyde Park before becoming the doyen of the early wildlife conservation movement in the salons of London.​

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.