Congratulations to Henley Spiers for taking the title of Bird Photographer of 2026 and a £3,000 prize with his study of a Gannet diving for fish in the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the award for Young Bird Photographer of The Year goes to 16-year-old Parham Pourahmad with his enchanting shot of a Great Horned Owl framed against full moon.
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| Chris' superb study of a Leach's Petrel fluttering over the Mersey |
ESPECIALLY at migration times, uncommon birds can turn up in the most unlikely of places.
Who, for instance, could ever expect to see a Wryneck feeding on the edge of a footpath leading to a Tesco hypermarket in Bolton, Lancashire?
Or a juvenile Dotterel resting on a seaside promenade and apparently oblivious to passers-by including joggers and pram-pushers?
These were among absorbing experiences shared in an illustrated presentation to Grimsby RSPB by high-profile birder Chris Galvin, a photographer and tour guide whose global travels have taken him all over Britain, continental Europe, the United States, Asia and beyond.
He is also regional accounts manager for binoculars and scopes manufacturer Opticron (oh yes, and, like The Prime Minister, he supports Everton FC).
Even his own modest-sized garden in urban Liverpool once attracted no fewer than four over-wintering Blackcaps, which were happy to feed on pyracantha berries.
Meanwhile, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Mistle Thrushes, Fieldfares and Redwings are regularly attracted on snowy days in winter by windfalls from his apple tree.
And from this time of year until November, skeins of migrating Pink-footed Geese are regularly to be seen and heard overhead as he steps out of his front door.
One species Chris reckons he can "never get enough of" is the Waxwing which he has occasionally seen - sometimes dozens at a time - in a car park at B&Q store not far from home.
One such bird he snapped in October 2004 had a colour ring on its left leg, attached after having been trapped following its flight from Scandinavia across the North Sea to Aberdeenshire.
Later that winter, this same bird was to be spotted again - first In Exeter, Devon, then in Arras in northern France.
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| Chris Galvin - lover of Waxwings |
Some birders in the north-west lament that that their patch of the UK seldom shares the benefits of drift migration that regularly brings vagrant passerines to the East Coast of Britain.
But are their woes justified? Not based on Chris' portfolio which includes fabulous shots of such rarities as Woodchat Shrike, Bluethroat, Rose-coloured Starling, Pallas' Warbler (the so-called "seven-striped sprite") and Booted Warbler, all seen within relatively short driving distance from his home.
Another highlight of Chris' long birding career, which began in his early teens, was one spring visit to Seaforth Nature Reserve where, feeding alongside Dunlin, was none other than a breeding-plumaged Wilson's Phalarope which, in normal circumstances, should have been on some wetland in Texas.
Three days later at the same spot, what should turn up but an even rarer White-tailed Lapwing that, by rights, probably should have been in Kazakhstan!
"How much better than that could things be!" enthused Chris who, to this day, gets as much pleasure as birding his own patch as he does travelling to more exotic overseas locations.
Chris revealed that he had once been paid as much as £3,000 for one of his photographs - a Common Tern feeding a small fish to its mate. This more than justified his expenditure of £2,000, just a few days earlier, on the high-definition lens with which he had captured the shot.
Yet he seemed even more proud of his flight study of a Leach's Petrel which editor Roger Riddington put on the front cover of the November 2008 edition of the prestigious monthly journal, British Birds
Leach's Petrel is something of an autumn migration speciality at the mouth of the Mersey but you have to be prepared to face Force 8 north-west squalls for the best prospects of sightings of the birds as they are blown towards shore.
Chris is a super-knowledgeable and observes birds, including common ones, in closest detail - but he wears his expertise lightly.
Among the most intriguing sections of his presentation were those where he explored the finer plumage details of birds such as Lesser Scaup and five gulls species - Little, Mediterranean, Sabine's, Laughing and Ross's.
Are there any downsides to birding?
Chris was not best impressed when he came across birders feeding scraps of stale bread to an Iceland Gull at one beachside location, nor when he discovered that fellow-photographers (who should have known better) had caused a pair of Long-tailed Tits to desert after they had cut away an ivy branch to enhance the view of their nest.
"That made my blood boil," said Chris who said he seldom took nest shots for fear of sparking similarly unhappy consequences.
As you would expect from a Liverpudlian, Chris peppered his talk with humour - not infrequently at his own expense.
Early is his talk, he recalled one slightly discomforting Sunday-morning encounter with a couple of traffic bobbies after he had pulled up on double yellow lines on a dual carriageway near home for the purpose of photographing feeding Fieldfares.
After a somewhat frosty 8.30am exchange of words, he agreed best to move on - after all, he had no wish to spend the rest of the weekend in police custody (nor longer term in Strangeways prison).
In the question-and-answer at the end of his talk, he described one unforgettably miserable May morning experience when he climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire in what proved to be fruitless quest to find a trip of resting Dotterel.
A heavy raid-laden mist engulfed him, such that he was totally drenched from head to toe by the time he returned to his car.
"I stripped off all my clothing, turned the heater on full blast and drove the whole way home just wearing my boxer shorts," he recalled with a rueful chuckle.
This was the 40th birthday meeting of the RSPB and the evening also included a video message of congratulation from TV wildlife presenter Iolo Williams, a roll call of early officers of the group, some of whom were present, and the distribution of slices of a birthday cake ceremonially cut by Malcolm Crawford, the group's first treasurer.
To conclude, RSPB Grimsby Group leader Martin Francis thanked the 50 or so present for a most enjoyable evening.
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| Lapwing - 'distressing decrease' in 1920s |
Extract from At Home With Wild Nature (1922) by Surrey bird enthusiast Richard Kearton:
I have been an observer of bird life all my days, but never remember a time when members of the avian world were so purposely persecuted as the present.
It is no exaggeration to say that quite 90 per cent of the nests, great and small, built in places accessible to the general public are wantonly destroyed.
The bird life of any country has its economic as well as its aesthetic side.
Once upon a time, the human inhabitants of a certain corner of the earth decided to exterminate all fowls of the air within their domain, but soon discovered that, although the birds were quite able to live without man, man could not exist without the assistance of the insect-destroying members of the feathered tribe.
I spent June of 1922 on the Westmorland Fells and shall never forget the sickening sights I saw of sheep being eaten alive by maggots.
This loathsome scourge has greatly increased during recent years, and it needs no great stretch of imagination to connect its ravages with the distressing decrease of Lapwings, Skylarks, Wheatears and other moorland birds.
I wish some epicure would try a boiled Rook's egg for breakfast and proclaim from the house-tops of Belgravia its superiority over that of the plover or Lapwing.
It would be a great boon to the latter bird, which is being slowly but surely exterminated to the detriment of the farmer in particular, and the public in general.
To the too ardent egg-collector, and especially the clutch enthusiast, whose appetite is insatiable, I would say: "For Heaven's sake have mercy."
All that can be known, or is worth knowing, in regard to variation in the coloration and markings of British birds' eggs has already been discovered, and there is but little room in that direction for originality.
Try old china or worm-eaten furniture and give the poor birds a chance.
In all conscience they need it, and there are still some people about who delight in their sweet songs and charming ways.
Whether it is due to the latent savagery released by the influences of the Great War or some other cause I cannot tell, but children appear to be much crueller than they were a decade or two ago.
Alas, I am in a position to supply incontestable evidence upon this point from what I have witnessed with my own eyes.
If school masters and mistresses would try to humanise boys and girls who come under their care and influence, I am persuaded it would make far better and happier citizens of them than all the unmattering dates and fairy tales of history that ever bored the youthful mind.
All the Acts of Parliament passed during recent years for the protection of our wild birds are not worth the paper they are printed on, for the simple reason that with the exception of a few keepers, provided by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, there is nobody to see that they are carried out.
Children know nothing whatever about the Wild Birds Protection Acts, and collectors laugh at them.
I therefore humbly submit the following suggestions for the better protection of our feathered friends:
(1) As there is a great deal of misconception in regard to the good or harm wrought by many of our birds, instruct the Natural History Museum and the Department of Agriculture to issue an authoritative report upon the food and activities of every British bird throughout all the seasons of the year, and publish this report.
(2) Let the Education Department issue instructions to every schoolmaster and schoolmistress in the land to give a weekly lesson on birds in the spring, and warn their pupils of the harm they do by destroying birds' nests, eggs or young.
(3) Close every natural history museum in the country during April, May and June, and send all the attendants out to protect wild birds.
They would thus learn something of the lives and habits of the specimens they have under their care in glass cases during the remainder of the year, and, incidentally, enjoy a good long holiday.
Half a dozen or so of the youngest and most athletic men might be told to act as detectives and dog the footsteps of certain insatiable collectors.
No man who deliberately makes a practice of stealing public property year by year, and knows he is breaking the law by so doing, could find reasonable fault with a repressive measure of this kind.
Unless something is done, and done quickly and effectively, more of our rare birds will have to be deleted from the list of British breeders, and others will cease to render the useful service they have given to agriculture for uncounted ages.
Richard Kearton
Ashdene,
Caterham Valley
Surrey
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| Somewhere in Asia . . . |
ONE thing is sure - if a Spoon-billed Sandpiper were ever to turn up on a British shoreline or wetland, the bird would be a magnet for twitchers by the thousands.
The thought is prompted by the depiction of one in an enchanting study by Robert Gillmor (1936-2022) which will be Lot 86 in an auction to be conducted by Tennants of Leyburn in Yorkshire on October 3.
The catalogue note states: "Asian Estuary, Migrant Waders. Signed, inscribed and numbered 10/10, linocut designed for Birdfair 2012, 31.5cm by 41cm".
The hammer is expected to fall at somewhere between £300 and £500.
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| A little bit of shoreline magic from Robert Gillmor |
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| Short-billed Dowitcher in New Jersey - photo: Chuck Holmler/ Focus on Wildlife via Wikimedia Commons |
THERE was disappointment for birders hoping to glimpse a Short-billed Dowitcher that was reported at Drift Reservoir, near Penzance, in Cornwall mid-afternoon on Monday of this week.
The bird was reportedly flushed by a passing Peregrine and has not been seen since.
Short-billed Dowitchers are now seldom recorded in Britain because they are in breeding decline in the marshlands of the United States and Canada.
In a paper in a 1993 edition of the Canadian Field Naturalist , researcher Charles Maisonneuve wrote:
"Within their vast breeding range (Québec toBritish Columbia), Short-billed Dowitchers are restricted to bogs, muskegs, fens or wet meadows.
"Although some authors mention that shorebird habitats in coastal staging and wintering areas are threatened by agricultural and pesticide pollution, industrial and port development and potential oil spill, there is no evidence yet that habitats used by dowitchers during their migrations or on their wintering grounds have been subjected to major environmental perturbation.
"However, a significant population decline in the Short-billed Dowitcher may be due to loss of breeding areas due to extensive flooding or drought following hydroelectric project development.
"In northern Québec and Labrador, more than 16, 300 ha of bogs, fens and sedge meadows were lost to the James Bay hydroelectric project.
"The W. A. C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River in British Columbia caused the dry-out of 50, 000 ha of wetlands in the Peace-Athabasca Delta
"A reduction of more than 38 per cent in water surface and disappearance of 36 per cent of the perched basin shorelines occurred in the three years following the closure of the dam.
Maisonneuve continued: "There is a pressing need for studies on northern shorebird breeding grounds facing development pressure because of the possible cumulative effect of these projects.
"On migration and on the southern wintering grounds, high proportions of many populations are concentrated into a few, distantly separated and vulnerable sites."
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| Drift Reservoir - photo: Kernow Skies/ Wikimedia |
Four very early hand-coloured engravings of birds are included in Lot 1429 which is up for bids at a sake to be conducted by Ewbanks of Woking in Surrey on September 24. the birds are not identified but the French artist is Francoise Nicholas Martinet (1725-1804). The pre-sale estimate for the lot is modest - jut £60 to £100.
