PROGRAMME for 2018
Monday 21 May — 5.30 pm — Annual Review Meeting of the Club; 6.30 pm — Dr. Bård G. Stokke — Host selection by the Common Cuckoo
Abstract: The Common Cuckoo is a generalist brood parasite at the species level, known to have utilized more than 100 host species in Europe alone. However, individual females are in general host specific, utilizing and often mimicking the eggs of a particular host species. This talk will focus on the spatial variation in host use in Europe, and I will discuss characteristics that are important for parasite utilization of passerine hosts. The research and results that will be described stem mostly from a thorough search for cuckoo parasitism events throughout Europe, which has so far resulted in approximately 65,000 cases of parasitism.
The Brambling Fringilla montifringilla is an important cuckoo host in Northern Scandinavia. Cuckoo eggs laid by brambling cuckoos are often examples of exquisite mimicry (Photos: Johan R. Vikan, NTNU).
Biography: Bård works in part as a researcher in the AfricanBioServices project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, and in part as a research professor at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim. He was awarded his PhD on avian brood parasitism at NTNU in 2001. Bård has studied co-evolution between brood parasites and hosts extensively both in Asia and Europe for 20 years. He is a co-author of the recently published book The Cuckoo—the Uninvited Guest (Plymouth: Wild Nature Press, 2017), which so far has appeared in Dutch, English, French and German editions.
Papers for the Annual Review Meeting including the financial report and accounts will be issued shortly.
Thursday 14 and Friday 15 June — A joint two-day meeting in Liverpool with the Society for the History of Natural History on the subject — Bon Voyage? 250 Years Exploring the Natural World.
Monday 17 September — 6.30 pm — details to be announced.
Monday 12 November — 6.30 pm — details to be announced.