Previous meetings in the past year
Looking for the Goshawk – Thursday 18th March 2026
Not surprisingly given the speaker and subject, the final talk of the season was really well attended.
Conor Mark Jameson is the author of several books including one on goshawks. He is also a contributor to a host of publications including the Guardian, New Statesman, BBC Wildlife, RSPB magazine and British Birds.
During the course of his excellent presentation, Mark told us how goshawks became extinct in the UK in the late 19th century before making a comeback in the 1970’s. In recent years their population has increased quite dramatically, especially in England, and there are now about 1300 pairs in the UK.
Mark’s highly informative talk covered the cultural role of goshawks in various parts of the world, their use in falconry, their breeding strategies, prey species, distribution and how to distinguish them from sparrowhawks in particular.
Generally thought of as a secretive bird of dense conifer plantations, it was fascinating to hear that the parks and cemeteries of Berlin host over 100 pairs. As their population continues to recover from the persecution of the past, it is quite possible that we will see more of them in the countryside and in our own urban landscapes.
Kindly sponsored by BIRDscapes Gallery
The Mystery of Migration – Thursday 19th February 2026
Andrew Clarke is well known to many of us locally, having retired from a career in Polar Ecology to pursue his first love, birding, in Norfolk, having long been fascinated by migration. He told us that Aristotle was the first known authority to state that birds migrated: that must have been obvious to country folk who could see geese arriving in winter or storks leaving in autumn, yet belief by the educated classes in migration as opposed to hibernation did not become the dominant theory until as late as 1800.
He described how wartime radar started to show migrating birds, yet despite plenty of evidence this was not accepted by military authorities for many years. Ringing has shown the source and destination of many migrants but not the route taken in between. The invention of a geolocator small enough to place on a bird then showed how Arctic Terns, summering in high northern lattitudes and wintering in the Antarctic, take different routes going south and going north, and that Greenland birds have different destinations than European breeders. It has been shown too that they can migrate across land and mountain ranges to short-cut their routes. He also mentioned the famous Bar-tailed Godwit that was shown to fly direct and non-stop from Alaska to Tasmania, a journey of 13,575 km in 265 hours of flight, and how the Godwits return up the west coast of the Pacific with a critical stopover in Korea to refuel.
He covered the question of how a young bird can go thousands of miles to a place it has never before visited. He described an experiment where starlings migrating from Scandinavia to Iberia were captured in the UK and transported to Switzerland: the adults then reoriented and flew to Iberia, but the juveniles continued on their original direction down to southern Italy.
How do birds navigate? Andy explained that diurnal migrants can detect polarised light, which indicates the direction of north. Diurnal migrants have been shown to use the sun, and nocturnal migrants the stars. Robins can ‘see’ the earth’s magnetic field thanks to an adaptation in their eyes. Seabirds can also use smell and infrasound.
Finally he asked why do birds migrate? If winter quarters provide a living why not stay there? The reasons have been found to be that more daylight hours further north mean more food collection time for feeding young, food is abundant in the northern summers, and so breeding productivity is higher. A Robin has an average clutch size of 3.5 in the Canary Islands, but 6.3 in Scandinavia, a trend found in a study of more than 5,000 species globally.
It was a fascinating exploration of migration, illustrated with excellent photos and graphics, by an engaging speaker – an evening well spent!
Kindly sponsored by Oriole Birding
A birding spectacular: migration at Cape May – Thursday 22nd January 2026
Mike Crewe spent six and a half years working at the Cape May Bird Observatory in New Jersey.
He started his excellent talk by describing the location, geology and varied habitats of the area. Its location on the eastern seaboard of the USA means that it attracts a huge variety of vagrants from both north and south.
These include tropical species such as Brown Pelican as well as birds from the high latitudes, such as Snowy Owl, Ivory Gull and Harlequin duck. Other rarities to have turned up there include Whiskered Tern, Western Kingbird and Vermillion Flycatcher.
Established in the 1970s, Cape May is an important location for regular bird counts such as the annual Hawk Watch and Avalon Sea Watch. There is also a huge emphasis on public education through walks, talks and workshops.
After the break, Mike showed a selection of stunning photographs of birds seen throughout the year at Cape May, a wonderful location that must be on many birders’ bucket lists.
Kindly sponsored by Bird Ventures
Norfolk Flowers – Thursday 18th December 2025
Simon Harrap is a well-known birder, photographer, author, tour leader, and botanist – and also a long term Norfolk resident. His Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland is one of the best known guides on the market. For this talk, however, he focused on the special flowers to be found in Norfolk, explaining too why they were able to thrive here, thanks to the geological history. The photos of each were excellent, and his explanations held us all fascinated.
The evening was kindly sponsored by Mark Lynton.
Trinity Broads – journey in lake restoration – Thursday 20th November
We were treated to an excellent talk by NWT warden Eilish Rothney about the management of the Trinity Broads which consist of five different broads located north of Great Yarmouth.
The site is owned by Essex & Suffolk Water and managed in partnership with Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
Originally peat diggings, Trinity Broads provide the domestic water supply to nearby villages, as well as Great Yarmouth and the surrounding area.
Eilish described the diverse habitats in and around the broads and explained how the heavily polluted waters were restored using a variety of biomanipulation techniques. These include mud-pumping to reduce nutrients and the removal of small roach which eat zooplankton that, in turn, consume the water fleas which are essential in keeping algae under control.
As well as maintaining water quality, the management plan includes monitoring biodiversity and enabling recreation such as boating and fishing. Much of Eilish’s work involves community engagement, ensuring that local people are informed and involved.
Indications of the success of the management plan include the return of breeding bitterns. Despite threats on the horizon, such as invasive killer shrimps, there is no doubt that Eilish’s hard work over many years has really improved the biodiversity of this important wildlife site.
The Jewel Hunter: in search of the world’s Pittas – 16th October 2025
You’re a successful professional working in London with a comfortable lifestyle, so what do you do? Well, in Chris Gooddie’s case, it’s give it all up and spend a year travelling half the globe, often in unpleasant if not dangerous circumstances, in accommodation that would fall a very long way short of even a single star, to see all the species of the Pitta family.
This was an astonishing feat, journeying through what seemed like most of the islands of South-east Asia, with visits also to the likes of Uganda, India, Thailand, Vietnam and even Australia, told with enthusiasm and humour. He suffered a serious arm injury, got repeatedly bitten by mosquitos, ticks and leeches, had close encounters with scorpions and snakes, lost a stone and a half with dysentery – but still found his Pittas.
Most of these are brightly coloured but creatures of the shady floor of dense forests and very hard to find, let alone see well enough to photograph. Chris told us that with many of the species, if it sees you first, you won’t see it. Consequently, some of the photos (taken on film with bulky optics of course, as this was 2009) were a little indistinct, but it was still a thoroughly interesting and entertaining story.
Of course, when he made his journey in 2009, there were 32 recognised Pitta species – with DNA analysis, they have since been reappraised to 46 species, so he still hasn’t seen them all!
Many thanks too to our sponsor for the evening, Cley Spy.
