The BOC Gavel Many years ago, while attending a BOC supper meeting at Imperial College, London, to give a talk on Cinereous Vultures in Mallorca, I was struck by the sight of a wonderful wooden artefact sitting on the table in front of the chairman. Curious, I picked it up and was even more surprised to see the object in detail. The gavel was presented to the BOC by Richard Meinertzhagen at the April 1951 […]
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Herbert Stevens (1877-1964): Collector, Benefactor and Enigma
Herbert Stevens (1877-1964): F.Z.S., F.R.G.S.,M.S.P.F.(M.F.F.I.), M.B.O.C. Collector, Benefactor and Enigma. By Amberley Moore February 2023 At the meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club on November 12 1924, a new Member, Herbert Stevens, was introduced by the Chairman – “Mr Stevens has been collecting birds and mammals in Tonkin (Vietnam) for the British Museum under the Salman Godman Fund. Unfortunately, through the capsizing of a river steamer, Mr Stevens lost all his notes and photographs, and […]
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Checklist Series – translated!
No, not all of them, just the one for Cuba. It’s number 26 and I strongly advise you to buy it (the printed version, in English), although I may be biased, being one of the authors. Way back last century, in 1975, two of Cuba’s most distinguished ornithologists (and naturalists) wrote a Catálogo de las Aves de Cuba. I don’t think I really need to translate that. Although it was written in Spanish, all the […]
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A Newsworthy Naturalist; The Life of William Yarrell
Published by the British Ornithologists’ Club and John Beaufoy £25 hardback. October 2021. Why write about Willliam Yarrell? A more pertinent question would be “Why has Yarrell been forgotten?” While making very many contributions to natural history in the 1830-50s, his was a household name among naturalists. William Yarrell (1784-1856) was very organised and lived his life in three separate compartments: his business, his publishing and his commitments to several major natural history societies. William […]
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But what about Bird Observatories?
Like many people, I surround myself with like-minded individuals. For me, therefore, that means people interested in the environment, animals and wildlife conservation. Of course, many of those know about the UK’s leading conservation charities such as the RSPB and The Wildlife Trusts. But what about Bird Observatories? I work at a bird observatory and will admit that until I saw the job advertised, I had no idea what a bird observatory was, or that […]
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Audubon’s ‘The Birds of America’: according to 8-year-olds
John James Audubon’s Birds of America is heralded as one of the first great examples of wildlife illustration. However, a recent paper written by Matthew R. Halley and published in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club unravels the truth behind one of Audubon’s legacies, ‘the Bird of Washington’. The Bird of Washington was an invented species of North American eagle, intended to impress his audience and mislead his peers. The Year 4 children at […]
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