The Dorset Bird Club’s
25th Anniversary Conference
in conjunction with the BTO
at Kingston Maurward College, Dorchester
Saturday 27th October 2012
Programme
09.00 Doors Open & Delegate Registration
09.50 Welcome. Neil Gartshore, DBC Chairman
10:00 Tracking African Migrants
Ieuan Evans
Chair: Jol Mitchell
10:30 The Living Record, a tool for recording Dorset birds & other wildlife
Adrian Bicker
11.00 Tea/Coffee Break
11.30 Tarifa: the Dorset Bird Club on tour
Neil Gartshore
12.00 [Kingston Maurward talk]
Andy Daw
12.30 Lunch
During the lunch break there will be an opportunity to have a look around the
trade/display stands.
Bring your binoculars and have a walk around the college grounds.
A bird ringing station will be operating near to the main house (weather
permitting).
Chair: Mark Constantine
14.00 Upton Heath, from the fire to the future
Steve Davis
14.30 Durlston National Nature Reserve & Country Park
Simon Breeze
15.00 Poole Harbour – a new dawn
Paul Morton
15.30 Tea/Coffee Break
16.00 Behind the scenes at the BBC Natural History Unit
Guest Speaker: Stephen Moss
16.50 Summing up
17.00 Conference closes
The Speakers
Ieuan Evans is Head of Membership & Volunteer Engagement at the BTO and acting BTO
Regional Representative for Dorset. His role at BTO involves communicating the trusts
scientific work to the public.
Adrian Bicker started out with birds as a YOC member, trundling around Dorset in the back
of a Ford Anglia. Having dabbled in plants and butterflies, he now concentrates on
dragonflies and is learning his moths. Living Record was created in 2010 to encourage
dragonfly recording in Dorset. It is now used nationally and collected 40% of the dragonfly
records sent in to the BDS last year. Adrian is undertaking a four year project for the Dorset
Environmental Record Centre to encourage recording in Dorset by supporting the work of
county groups like the DBC. Living Record has been extended to cover Birds, Butterflies,
Beetles etc., and even Water Fleas!
Neil Gartshore has been Chairman of the Dorset Bird Club since 2010. He has also spent
time on the Committee as the County Bird Recorder (when he worked closely with the
Dorset Environmental Records Centre to set up the Club’s current database). After working
in the nature conservation field for nearly 25 years he ‘went freelance’ in 2006. He runs
Calluna Books, buying and selling out of print natural history books and, over the years, has
led a number of bird watching trips to southern Spain.
Andy Daw is the Vice-principle of Kingston Maurward College.
Steve Davis is the Volunteering Programme Manager for Dorset Wildlife Trust. A keen birder
for many years, he is also a Dorset trainer for bat roost visitors. Being based at the Urban
Wildlife Centre on the edge of Upton Heath, Steve is also very much involved in the reptile
surveys carried out on the heath.
Simon Breeze is the Conservation Ranger at Durlston National Nature Reserve. Natural
history and bird watching has been his passion since childhood leading him to study a BSc in
Zoology. He has previously worked for the RSPB and throughout Wales and is now
concentrating his efforts on the management and ecological monitoring at Durlston.
He has recently launched a new farmland bird conservation project in partnership with the
Dorset Bird Club and looks forward to developing this into future. Simon is also the Dorset
regional representative for the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey.
Paul Morton, a local birder and naturalist, spent most of his childhood on the headlands
around Poole Harbour looking for anything that moved. Over time an obsession with the
harbour started to develop until he eventually ended up in his dream job working as the
education officer at Arne RSPB reserve. Paul now works for Mark Constantine and dedicates
his working life to coming up with new initiatives in helping promote natural history
education within the harbour.
Stephen Moss is a naturalist, author and TV producer based on the Somerset Levels. In a
long career at the BBC Natural History Unit his series included ‘Birding with Bill Oddie’,
‘Springwatch’ and ‘Birds Britannia’. He has also written many books - his latest is Wild Hares
and Hummingbirds: the natural history of an English village.
Stands
Adrian Bicker/The Living Record
BTO
Calluna Books
Dorset Bird Club
Dorset Wildlife Trust
I-Spot
Kingston Maurward College
The Sound Approach
Two Owls