Cambridgeshire Bird Club
Welcome to the club
The Cambridgeshire Bird Club promotes the study, recording and conservation of birds in Cambridgeshire and encourages a wider interest in natural history and the protection of county wildlife habitats.
We record the County's birds in our Annual Report, so we need your records. We have a stunning Gallery, so we need your photos. We do research, we have indoor and outdoor meetings, and we keep you informed with our regular emailed and online bulletins. We have links to active bird ringing groups. And have a look at our Facebook page.
You can see What's About? and we urge you to report interesting, sensitive or confidential sightings to the County Recorder.
We hope you enjoy your visit and come back soon.
Photo of the year 2018
Congratulations to Neil Bramwell for winning the Photo of the Year competition with his photo of a Hawfinch. In second place was Nigel Sprowell's Spotted Flycatcher, and in third place was a Peregrine Falcon by Simon Stirrup. View here to see all three, and click here to see the photos entered.
Picture of the month: February
Short-eared Owl, Undisclosed site. 5 February 2019
© David Banasiak
Jonathon Stephenson has made this month's selection: With an unseasonably warm and spring-like February came many pictures of a very high standard, which made it extremely difficult to whittle them down to a final three. My choice for picture of the month is David Banasiak’s Short-eared Owl. It’s an unusual angle to capture and really illustrates the amazing power of flight these beautiful birds possess. Joint runners up are two separate series of photos. Nigel Sprowell’s Goldcrest, with its golden crown shining in the sunshine and Simon Stirrup’s Bearded Tit, three lovely shots of this reedbed specialist.
e-Bulletins
The December 2018 e-Bulletin is now available to view. The latest issue published here is two month's behind the current one which you receive, as soon as it is available, when you join us.
Club Meetings
12 April: Guillemots on Skomer Island by Tim Birkhead
Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham Village College, CB24 8UA. 7.30pm for 8pm start
Skomer Island National Nature Reserve is one of Britain’s most important seabird colonies. The Guillemot population on Skomer has been monitored for longer and more accurately than any other seabird almost anywhere else in the UK, allowing us to assess the state of the population, but also the state of the marine environment in the area utilised by Guillemots and other seabirds. Tim’s research has been running for 30 years and he now raising funds to enable it to continue.
10 May: Wild birds in human history: the archaeological approach by Umberto Albarella
Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham Village College, CB24 8UA. 7.30pm for 8pm start
Many people love birds because of their beauty, songs and overall contribution to our countryside. They also represent a fundamental part of our ecosystems. We love birds but we also need birds and in that respect they are worthy or our care and protection. It is less often considered, however, that birds have also had a fundamental role in shaping our past and that, as such, they are part of our historical as well as natural heritage.
In this talk Umberto Albarella will provide some examples of how archaeologists have studied birds in order to understand past human societies and the way the relationship between humans and birds has operated. He will show how birds have represented food, status symbols, religious icons as well as companions to different people of the past; and also how, unfortunately, humans have historically persecuted birds. Case studies will focus on Britain and Italy, as well as the Roman and medieval periods, for which we have particularly wealthy evidence.
- Umberto Albarella has a first degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Naples (Italy), but he has been interested in anthropology and then archaeology since his undergraduate days. He engaged in archaeological fieldwork in Italy and studied animal bones from urban Roman and medieval sites in Naples. He moved permanently to England in 1993, working at English Heritage, the University of Birmingham, University of Durham and eventually moved to the University of Sheffield, where he is a Reader in Zooarchaeology. Umberto specialises in the study of animal bones from archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). Although his research is predominantly based in Britain and Italy, he has also worked in Armenia, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France and Portugal.
More on meetings here
Annual General Meeting 2019
The 2019 Annual General Meeting of the Cambridgeshire Bird Club was held in the Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham Village College at 7.45 pm on Friday 8th March. To view the Agenda, click here, and for the Minutes of the 2018 AGM click here. The audited and signed Financial Statement for 2018 can be viewed here.