Cambridgeshire Bird Club
CORONAVIRUS - Please uphold the reputation of our Bird Club by strictly adhering to the latest Government policy and advice on all birding activities away from home.
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 want your photos. We have field projects, we have indoor meetings and trips, and we keep you informed with our monthly emailed and 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.
If you are unsure of the location of the less well-known birding sites, check our Gazetteer
Announcements
- Lockdown race 24th May - bigger and better! Read here for details.
- Baby bird queries ? Read here (RSPB) and here (Helpwildlife)
- The CBC Woodland Bird Survey has resumed as of today 13th May. See below and here
- The results of the first two Lockdown day races have been compiled by Louise Bacon and can be viewed here
- The picture of the month for April is Garth Peackcock's Starlings
- Our gallery will no longer show site information for each picture while the Covid-19 crisis continues. See more.
- With regret, because of Coronavirus, we have cancelled our meetings until June at least.
- The Photo of the Year 2020 is David Ball's Common Tern. Congratulations to David.
- The January Club e-Bulletin is now available to non members - records, photos, articles and event reminders . Read here.
- Make a note in your diary of the the dates of our summer fields trips: 10th July and 14th August - see Meetings
The third Lockdown race of 2020 - Sunday 24th May
Now that we have more freedom to be out for much longer, a few of us really want a Biking bird-race day, but we also respect the fact that some of you are still either shielding and therefore confined to barracks, or are still only doing short excursions...
So this time there is way more freedom in where / how long you record, as long as you follow a few basics rules - see more here
- The recording form link for the end of the activity is here: https://forms.gle/XHgek6AEiNagJJhK7
Cambridgeshire Bird Club Woodland Bird Survey 2020
This survey has resumed and it is not too late to join in. New government guidance now allows this.
In 2003 the Club carried out a survey of woodland birds focusing especially on the scarce and declining species such as Marsh Tit and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker....... Further information here.
Cambridgeshire Bird Club Summer Garden Bird Survey 2020
If you have a garden in this area and you like to watch the birds in your garden, we would like to invite you to take part in the Cambridgeshire Bird Club Summer Garden Bird Survey 2020.
We ask that you note the bird species feeding or foraging in your garden from Sunday 8th March – Saturday 3rd October. We will discover which species of birds make most use of gardens in the county during the summer months, find out whether new species are coming into gardens and whether the regular species are making less use of the gardens.
Club meetings
- Details of our indoor meetings and summer outdoor trips can be found on our Meetings page. The two scheduled field trips are to Gamlingay Wood (10th July) and Kingfishers Bridge (14th August).
Photo of the year: 2019
Congratulations to David Ball for winning the 2019 Photo of the Year competition with his photo of this Common Tern. There was a tie for second place, so in no particular order they were Garth Peacock's fighting Coots and Dawid Banasiak's Short-eared Owl. Click here to view all three, and 2019 Winner and runners up to see all the photos that had been entered.
Picture of the month: April
Starling
© Garth Peacock, Apr 22nd.
Vince Lea presents his case for the choice of this month's bird:
I decided we needed something to offer a bit of amusement in these dark times. David Ball started the ball rolling (sorry!) with an April Fool's Day Snowy Owl, but Colin Brown's Blackbird doing a dancing and juggling act had a bit more photographic merit. However, Garth Peacock's series of flight shots of Starlings shows what can be done with a good set up in your own garden, and the image with one appearing to be balanced on the head of another as they come down to land is my selection for photo of the month. There is a stunning array of other images to admire for anyone still confined to home, including an impressive array of spring migrants, with White-tailed Eagle, Hoopoe, Dotterel and some lovely passage gulls and terns to admire, including a very useful image of Arctic Tern by Matt Mellor showing the key identification features. Regular species were also the subject for several superb studies, ranging from Grey Wagtails and Grasshopper Warblers to Red-legged Partridge. Christoph Zockler's photo of a hybrid Aythya duck and Steve Cooper's studies of Pied Wagtails are also well worth a look.
Found and injured bird? Contact a rehabilitator. Baby birds? Read here and also here
Local bird news from Cambirds and Peterbirder
Recent annual Cambridgeshire Bird Reports
- The Cambridgeshire Bird Report 2018 No. 92 has been published. Copies can be purchased from the Club - see here
- The Cambridgeshire Bird Report 2017 (No. 91) is now available to read online - click here for CBR 2017 or go to Bird Reports
CBC Spotted Flycatcher research 2015-19, linked to the BTO's geolocator project
Michael Holdsworth's excellent study on Spotted Flycatchers can be read at http://bit.ly/SpotFly