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INDOOR
MEETINGS
17 February Birds of the Algarve Ray Tipper
Ray hales from Gillingham but for the past twelve years has lived in the
town of Tavira in the Algarve. He serves on the Portuguese Rarities
Committee, but as there are only about eighty competent bird watchers
domiciled in the whole country, many
We were treated to a feast of excellent slides portraying a
mouth-watering variety of avian treats. The birds are mainly to be found
in either the narrow coastal strip, or inland among the hills. Hunters
are still a problem in the Algarve and much of the habitat of olive
groves, cork woodlands and oleander bushes has been replaced by golf
courses and developments to satisfy the tourist trade. However, it isn't
all bad
In Tavira itself, pallid swifts breed in the palm trees and at Cape St.
Vincent, the most southerly point of Europe, excellent sea watching can
be had with shearwaters, skuas and Sabine gulls following the Atlantic
coastline. In autumn raptor passage At the salt pans at Castro Marim, near the Spanish border, up to fifteen hundred flamingos gather along with spoonbills, avocet, great white egrets, black-winged stilts, Kentish plover and both Audouin's and slender-billed gulls. The star bird of the region is little bustard, which breeds along with quail and stone curlew. However, all ground-nesting birds are at risk from the metre long ocellated lizard. Other birds of note are red-rumped swallow, zitting cisticola, spotless starling, blue rock thrush, rufous scrub robin, thekla lark, azure-winged magpie, hoopoe, the ubiquitous Sardinian warbler and, of course, bee-eater (my favourite slide!). My only criticism of the presentation is that I would have preferred a few more slides of the scenery and as Ray is softly spoken sometimes his words tailed off. On the whole though it was very enjoyable so thank you Ray for showing us the splendours of your new home patch. Sue Carter
17 March Scotland, the wilderness on your doorstep lan Rowlands What a splendid evening! Good attendance, charismatic, clear speaker and a subject obviously close to the hearts of many of the audience. Ian was a new speaker to us and, with a clarity of presentation, great enthusiasm for his subject and a sense of humour, he quickly impressed. The talk was in two halves; the first Speyside and the second Scottish coastal waters. Ian was clearly in love with Speyside, to the extent of moving to live there twenty years ago.
Speyside gave the opportunity for some excellent pictures of many of
Scotland’s most iconic birds, golden eagle, capercaillie, ptarmigan,
grouse, crossbill and Slavonian grebe. However, the presentation was not
simply about birds but showed The second half concentrated on Scottish coastal waters and showed all the expected sea birds with particular highlights being skuas and gannets. The gannet is a favourite birds and so I empathised with Ian’s view that it should be our national bird!
Pictures off the Black Isle enabled us to see bottlenose dolphins, which
come close in shore at Chanory Point where I have had the privilege of
seeing them in numbers. Whales and otters were not neglected, confirming
the richness of Scotland and its
The evening finished all too quickly with no time for questions. The
message to Robin is ‘congratulations for booking Ian but do not leave it
too long before John Nixon.
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