Cambridgeshire Bird Club
Coronavirus - please uphold the reputation of our Bird Club when birding
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 and our Twitter sites.
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.
Announcements
Picture of the Month for December is Simon Stirrup's Whooper Swans - see here
The Club eBulletin for November (#89) is now available to non members - containing records, photos, articles and event reminders . Read here.
The next club meeting (by the Zoom video platform) is Friday, 12th February: 'Birds of Oman' by Mike Watson
AVIAN FLU: The Angling Trust’s Voluntary Bailiff Service reported on 5th Dec that avian (bird) flu has been confirmed in fenland swans. They advise, ""Please be aware that you may see dead swans on the Nene or Drains. Please under no circumstances go near or touch them. Phone Defra: 0345 933 5577, option 7: 'all other enquiries'. They will direct you to the correct local swan rescue (recovery ) people as all dead swans must now be collected for investigation". Email: defra.helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk and provide details. More info at Avian influenza (bird flu) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Sunday 4th October was the start of the Bird Club Winter Garden Bird Survey - you can still contribute by starting now - details are here
The Photo of the Year 2020 is David Ball's Common Tern. Congratulations to David.
Club meetings
The next meeting is Friday February 12th 2021, 7.30 pm, entry from 7.20 pm, using the Zoom video platform.
Mike will be talking about his many visits to the Sultanate of Oman, the most exciting birding destination in the Middle East. Situated on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, it has a wide variety of birdlife from Middle Eastern specialities to Palearctic, Afrotropical and Oriental migrants as well as some special seabirds - - and all this in some of the most dramatic desert scenery in the world.
More details of our online meetings can be found on our Meetings page. Indoor face to face meetings will resume on some date in 2021, we hope. Until then, meetings will be held on a Zoom video platform.
Cambridgeshire Bird Club Winter Garden Bird Survey 2020-21
The Winter Survey kicked off on 4th October 2020. There is just about time left to join in, and for details of the background to the survey and the method, read here.
Cambridgeshire Bird Club Summer Garden Bird Survey 2020
This has now been completed. Thank you to everyone who took part. 77 species of birds were recorded from 41 gardens. Some of the species recorded include: Swallow, House Martin, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Cuckoo, and Turtle Dove.
Cambridgeshire Bird Club members received a more detailed account of this report in eBulletin #90 (December issue). I hope that you will continue with this survey by taking part in the Garden Bird Survey Winter 2020-2021, the details of which are above, and I look forward to receiving the results by the end of April 2021.
Rebecca Buisson
The three Lockdown races of 2020
To see how these played out, look here
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: December
Whooper Swans © Simon Stirrup, near Aldreth at sunrise, 17th December
“There are many photos to admire in December's gallery – a mixture of lovely portraits, rarities and excellent action shots.
I particularly liked the Cetti’s Warbler taken by Jonathan Heath and the Dusky Warbler photos by Nigel Sprowell and Garth Peacock. To see (let alone photograph) a Cetti’s Warbler fully out in the open is a real treat and to capture Cambridgeshire’s first Dusky Warbler so well deserves praise (particularly as it did give birders the run-around on occasions).
December certainly was a good month to catch up with Glossy Ibis in the county. The birds at Earith were certainly very photogenic and both Simon Stirrup and Neil Bramwell captured some excellent images.
Another feature of December was the arrival of small groups of Russian White-fronted Geese along with a few Pink-footed and Tundra Bean Geese. James Hanlon, Andy Dobson and Neil Bramwell captured a number of excellent instructive and action shots from both Fen Drayton Lakes and Wimpole Hall. I particularly liked James’s Tundra Bean Goose with part of the Hall in the background.
I could watch Bearded Tits all day, so it was great to see a number of images posted of this iconic denizen of our fenland reedbeds. The photographs from Ouse Fen that Nigel Sprowell took at the beginning of the month are superb, in particular the flight shot.
However, the one December photo that for me fully captures a fantastic start to a day's winter birding in the county was Simon Stirrup's shot of Whooper Swans taken at sunrise near Aldreth on December 17th. It is so atmospheric ( you can almost hear them calling ) and the swans' breaths condensing conveys how cold it must have been! It gets my vote as Picture of the Month”.
Found and injured bird? Contact a rehabilitator. Baby birds? Read here and also here
Local bird news from Cambirds.
Recent annual Cambridgeshire Bird Reports
The Cambridgeshire Bird Report 2019 No. 93 has been published. Copies can be purchased from the Club - see here
The Cambridgeshire Bird Report 2018 (No. 92) will be available to read online shortly
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