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| Matthew Capper - fond boyhood memories of Mirador telescope |
PLAUDITS to Matthew Capper of the go-ahead Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust for his lively illustrated talk at the January meeting of the trust's Grimsby-area group.
Matthew, who is head of public engagement and communications, updated his audience at Grimsby Town Hall on the work of the Horncastle-based organisation - both its strategies for nature recovery and its continuing breeding success with species such as little terns and natterjack toads.
Earlier in his talk, Matthew offered a whistlestop tour of how his passion for nature had developed, starting as a toddler when, during a visit to a local duckpond, he had to be restrained by his parents from jumping into the water to swim with the mallards!
As a 13-year-old member of the RSPB's Young Ornithologists' Club, his first optical accessories were a pair of 8x30 Zeiss Jenoptem binoculars and a Mirador telescope.
Whatever happened to them? He didn't say.
Matthew paid tribute to his father, now 86, an old school country naturalist and gamekeeper by livelihood for his endless enthusiasm and continuing encouragement from his boyhood days growing up in Stamford.
There were also plaudits for Tim Appleton, co-founder of Birdfair and former warden at Rutland Water, for mentoring him as he was learning to hone his ornithological skills while growing up in Stamford.
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| Tim Appleton - birding mentor |
The speaker emphasised the importance of encouraging young people, and he questioned the apparent aloofness of some experienced birders.
He recalled once being in a hide with birders much older than himself and pointing out that among numerous great-crested grebes was a smaller bird that was perpetually diving - a red-necked grebe.
At first, the observers were inclined to be dismissive, but when they realised his identification was accurate, they acknowledged it, but only with "grudging respect".
To this day, Matthew takes pride in having spoken up when his first instinct might have been to stay silent amongst his elders.
"We have to encourage kids to be interested," he insisted.
Further down his birding journey, he has become, in his own words, a "mild twitcher", sometimes travelling long distances with pals to glimpse a rare vagrant!
"Part of the pleasure of birding is the opportunity it provides for forging friendships," he said.
Not that everything has always gone to plan. He recalled ruefully an expedition to Dorset in June 2014 in a quest to add to his lifelist Britain's first recorded short-toed snake eagle - only to 'dip' (miss the bird).
"I later learned that I had driven past it three times it without seeing the eagle," he confided.
Another of his anecdotes concerned his friend, Tim Melling, who once received a phone call from a school headmaster that, within a cardboard box in his study, was a distressed bird that he had identified as a sociable plover.
Imagine the anti-climax for Tim when he arrived at the school and peered inside the box to see a bedraggled . . . starling!
Attempting to feign his dismay, Tim asked the head what had caused him to identify the bird as a sociable plover.
Back came the reply: "He seemed such a friendly little fellow."
Before joining the trust in his present role, Matthew, who is a Geography graduate from Sheffield University, worked in the Peak District for the National Park Ranger Service, specialising in safeguarding birds of prey.
He also spent many years working for the RSPB on various conservation projects plus a very satisfying decade at the society's Dearne Valley Old Moor wetland reserve, near Barnsley, where he was senior site manager.
Located on an 89-hectare site where coal mining once flourished, he oversaw much of its transformation from an arid state of contamination to a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest such is its richness of wildlife including bitterns and bearded tits.
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| Dearne Valley Old Moor - home to bitterns and bearded tits |
"It just shows how, when given the chance, nature can bounce back," he enthused.
Unusually among speakers at talks of this sort, Matthew was not shy of being controversial.
He was critical of the "commercialisation" of the shooting industry - particularly the impact on other wildlife of releasing millions of gamebird chicks into the wild.
He also called for a licensing regime whereby landowners guilty of abuses, such as the killing of protected birds of prey or the burning of heather on moorland, should forfeit their licences.
What of criticism that organisation such as the RSPB as well at the wildlife trusts have become too political in recent months?
Matthew acknowledged that it would be inappropriate for wildlife-focused organisations to be "party political", but he insisted that they were within their rights to hold Governments, of whatever persuasion, to account over unfulfilled pledges on nature recovery.
He ended by reminding his audience (of about 30) that a General Election was likely later this year, calling on trust members to write individually to to MPs , urging them to demonstrate support for wildlife and nature.
