I can't believe it’s been nearly twelve months since I was asked to man the stand at WOS 2012. Here we were again, this time gathered in the wonderful setting of the Bridges Community Centre, Monmouth. The conference was held in conjunction with the Gwent Ornithological Society’s 50th anniversary year. As always the day began with the WOS AGM and Iolo’s Presidents report. Iolo bemoaned the lack of willingness on the part of the politicians and their related organisations in helping conservation work, and hoped our NGO’s would stand up and make a noise on behalf of nature. After his usual round up of the breeding success and failures of our native species here in Wales he went on to present Lifetime Achievement Awards to a couple of RSPB greats.
Roger Lovegrove was director of RSPB Cymru for twenty seven years, as well as a writer and a broadcaster. Next up was Graham Williams for his work safeguarding nature as head of RSPB Cymru reserves for the past twenty six years.
The society also presented their inaugural Student Research Award to Stacey Melia for her work in studying Osprey chicks’ diet on the nests at the Dyfi Estuary.
The first speaker for the day was Al Venables, on the first fifty years of the Gwent Ornithological Society. GOS was started by a beginner birdwatcher, Bert Hamar, so there is hope for me yet! The conference was chosen to launch their new book Bird Watching Walks In Gwent, which I, along with quite a lot of delegates picked up from their stand. From an initial thumb through the pages it looks a valuable resource for looking for new places to watching birds within Gwent County, and a fantastic addition to my burgeoning bookshelf. No doubt, some of the walks mentioned will feature in future blogs here. Next up was former head of conservation at the RSPB, Mark Avery. He was in fine fettle. He made the point that the Passenger Pigeon, which once formed flocks in the billions, went extinct in less than 100 years. The anger that this was allowed to happen has faded into memory along with the bird. He said he had watched a roost of bats take off from sunset from under a bridge in Texas, one of the truly magnificent spectacles in nature. The bat roost was thousands of times smaller than the Passenger Pigeon flocks recorded. You simply couldn’t imagine what a billion birds must look like. He wondered what the Duchess of Portland, the first RSPB president, would be doing now if she were around today. He said she would be writing to her MP, signing e-petitions, blogging and using social media to get her message out there. He made the point that we are the generation that has to stop the rot in species decline, and we should start making a noise about the loss of our wildlife in our area. It really can be as simple as emailing your MP and signing e-petitions. We are the digital placard wavers now! Nigel Clarke from the BTO gave a fascinating talk on the Severn Estuary and its unique habitat. He went on to explain how any tidal barrage built across it with current technology would be disastrous for the wildlife there. Over 20 million tonnes of sediment moves around the estuary during the tidal cycle. The Cardiff Bay barrage provided evidence that the waders were displaced to sub optimal sites in the area after its construction. He also made the point that none of his research could be done without the army of volunteers carrying out WeBS (Wetland Breeding Surveys) counts and proving the data. People have been trying to harness the massive energy available from the tidal range of the Severn Estuary since the late 1800’s; Nigel Clark warned that it is not going to stop now, despite the collapse of the current proposal. He mentioned that one of the biggest problems with the barrage is the type of turbine used. The pressure change through the turbine system would cause “cavitation” within fish, literally exploding them. There would be a complete removal of young chad, which would be particularly prone to the rigours of travelling through the turbines, from the estuary. He ended by saying that the understanding of bird movements and the ecology of the area had increased massively in the twenty years he had been studying the area, by contrast, engineers had not come up with a better type of turbine and the same system is in use today, as was then.
It was time for lunch, and for me to man my little stand. The second half of the day was equally as absorbing, more on that in part two of this blog tomorrow.
All Images © Anthony Walton.