PROGRAMME for 2019
See here for details of the venue and time
Monday 16 September 2019—6.30 pm—PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE—
Pat Morris—The Hastings Rarities—taking the long view
Dr Pat Morris
Abstract.—It is now over 50 years since hundreds of bird records were dismissed as potentially fraudulent on the grounds that it was unlikely that so many rare species would turn up within a short period of time and a limited area around Hastings. Statistical analysis confirmed a significant difference between the number of records within that area and time compared other areas of Kent/Sussex and with later. In ornithological terms it makes limited difference, as most of the suspect species have been found subsequently in that area. It has long been widely accepted that fraud occurred and that a local taxidermist, George Bristow, was responsible for perpetrating this. Bristow was unable to defend himself, having died, and the taxidermy profession was besmirched. Although protests were made at the time the issue appears closed. However, there remain worrying doubts when the evidence is examined closely. At the same time, in retrospect there may be further evidence to confirm Bristow’s guilt. A colleague, Philip Redman, who has also been studying details of the Hastings affair, may hopefully be able to join us from Paris.
Biography.—Dr Pat Morris was Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Royal Holloway, Univ. of London, and well known for his studies of mammal ecology. He is a past Chairman of the Mammal Society, a former Council Member of the National Trust, and has published >70 scientific papers and c.20 books. A consultant to several major publishers and the BBC Natural History Unit, in his spare time he has pursued a long-standing interest in the history of taxidermy and was appointed the first Hon. Life Member of the Guild of Taxidermists. He was awarded the Founder’s Medal by the Society for the History of Natural History and made MBE in the 2015 Honours List ‘for services to the natural and historic environment’.
Saturday 26 October 2019 – One-day joint conference with the Neotropical Bird Club and the Natural History Museum in the Flett Theatre of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London. Attendance is open to all and entrance is free. Speakers will include:
Luís Fábio Silveira – Avoiding extinctions in the most threatened area in the Neotropics: the Pernambuco Centre of Endemism, Brazil
Christian Devenish – Conservation of dry forest endemic birds in northwest Peru
Martin Schaefer – Using science to protect Ecuador’s most threatened birds
Alexander Lees – Diversity in avian mimicry
Samuel Jones – The physiology/behaviour nexus in a Central American cloud forest songbird, the Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush Catharus mexicanus
Joseph Tobias – Frontiers of knowledge: a quarter-century of Neotropical discovery
See here for full details.
Monday 18 November 2019—6.30 pm—Tim Birkhead—The wonderful Mr Willughby—the start of scientific ornithology
Professor Tim Birkhead
Abstract.— The first scientific bird book was The ornithology of Francis Willughby, named in Willughby’s honour by his friend John Ray after Willughby’s death at the age of just 36 in 1672. These two men were pioneers of the scientific revolution and changed the way we think about birds. Until recently it was widely assumed that Ray was the brains and Willughby a mere ‘talented amateur’, but after a decade of research I have been able to show that Willughby was every bit as brilliant as his co-author and friend John Ray. In this talk I will tell the story of Willughby’s short but spectacularly productive life—a story every ornithologist ought to know.
Biography.— Tim Birkhead is emeritus professor of behavioural ecology at the Univ. of Sheffield. He completed a D.Phil. at Oxford on guillemots (Alcidae) in 1976, before taking a lectureship at Sheffield in 1976 where he has been ever since. Tim is a Fellow of the Royal Society—the UK’s most prestigious scientific society. His main research is on promiscuity in birds, but he is also interested in the history of science. He has maintained a long-term study of Common Guillemots Uria aalge on Skomer Island, Wales, for the last 47 years and raised UK£150,000 through crowd funding to keep the study going. Tim has won several awards for his undergraduate teaching. He is also an award-winning author and has written 15 books, including several popular science works. He has featured on BBC Radio 4’s Life Scientific, The Infinite Monkey Cage and Inside Science, and his book The most perfect thing: the inside (and outside) of a bird’s egg was made into a TV programme with David Attenborough, who referred to the book as “Magnificent”.