News archive

Wednesday, 30 October 2019

July to September News 2019

Although the Local Group hibernates in July there was one noteworthy event - a butterfly walk on Therfield Heath led by our Group Leader, Martin Johnson, on the 22nd. Organised by Butterfly Conservation, this walk attracted several Local Group members. The chief attraction was the rare and localised chalkhill blue butterfly. Many of these attractive butterflies (mainly males) were seen, alongside an amazing 19 other species!
Our first field trip was an own transport visit to College Lake and the Tring Reservoirs on 25 August. A total of 58 bird species were seen, including a whinchat at College Lake, but the over-riding memory was of an incredibly hot day, with temperatures in excess of 30C!
The invited speaker, Laura Beasley, got our indoor meetings season off to a good start on 6 September as she described how mice had been decimating the bird population on Gough Island in the South Atlantic and how the RSPB was acting to remove this invasive species. Our first coach trip, on 15 September, took us to Rye Harbour on the East Sussex coast. Glorious weather accompanied us, with bird highlights (76 species seen) including Arctic skua, great white egret and yellow wagtail. Other wildlife seen included grey seal, stoat, common lizard, marsh frog and eleven species of butterfly.