We now have the final results of the January Bird count and I thought it might be
interesting to draw together the results of the last few Bird counts since we re-started
after Covid.

Year                                                                    2023          2024       2025
Number of teams                                                 5                15            10
Number of people counting                                11                35           27
Winning team total number of species              88               81           77
Total number of species recorded                      93              96           92
Total number of records                                                        850        577

​Speaker: Nick Acheson
Reporter: Sue Gale

Nick Acheson is an old friend of WVBS, and we know we can rely on him to give an entertaining talk that is crammed full of information. As usual we were not disappointed, and we all know an awful lot more about Bolivia than we did before! Nick went to Bolivia in 1997, intending to stay for a few months but effectively stayed for 10 years. He knew nothing about the
country before he went but found it to be at the meeting point of 4 out of the 5 major regions of South America, meaning that it offered a wide variety of habitats and therefore also of species. To the East of the country the land is low-lying but even here there are differences, with woodlands and savannahs, whereas to the West are the Andes, with their valleys and at the furthest west the high altiplano. Nick lived in Santa Cruz, pretty much right in the middle.

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.