Hi Everybody
I had hoped that, by now, you would have all read the report in the Orcadian from our very successful Feed the Birds Day. No luck, sadly, but see Morag Wilson's blog below.
Charities Bazaar
A last minute reminder that RSPB volunteers will be out again tomorrow (12th), this time at Kirkwall Town Hall for the annual Charities Bazaar. Please drop by if you are in the town. It's a good chance to buy RSPB Christmas cards, calendars, diaries, etc. also to support the raffle the main prize being Kate Barrett's unique painting of a Lapwing.
Annual General Meeting
Thanks to those of you who attended the AGM on November 3rd. Eric Meek and Andy Knight gave interesting reports of events which have taken place and some on-going.
The Committee remains unchanged as follows: Chairman Dick Matson, Treasurer Jim
Williams, Secretary Pauline Wilson. Committee members: Grace Currie, Graham Brown, Kathie Brown, Aileen Meek (Wex representative).
Rosemary & Neil McCance donated a lovely Limoges plate depicting a Snowy Owl and this was won by Ann Gosman; a bottle of Orkney wine was won by Ian Smith. Many thanks to those who contributed so generously towards the raffle which realised a total of £38.
After the AGM we joined members of the SOC for a very interesting talk by Neil Calbrade about the Wetland Bird Survey in Scotland.
Also at this meeting Eric Meek presented an award to Dawson Shearer (see Orcadian for photo) recognising 20 years' volunteering in the Beached Birds Survey.
Amendment from last time
In my last 'Latest Haps' I reported that a treecreeper had been spotted in the St. Magnus Churchyard. Eric Meek has asked me to point out that the bird was spotted by cathedral stonemason Colin Watson. What a find!
Interesting Talk tomorrow night
Eric Meek reports the following:
Just a reminder of the talk entitled 'A Saga of Sea Eagles' that will be given by John Love on Saturday evening (12th November)at 7.30 pm in the St.Magnus Centre, Kirkwall.I hope some of our members will go along to John Love's talk and find out about the re-introduction of this fabulous bird into parts of Scotland.
Committee Meeting
Your Local Group Committee held a meeting last night and, besides our usual outings and events, one or two new ideas were spoken about so I look forward to telling you all about these before too long.
Little Visitors
Finally, I couldn't resist attaching the photo of a blackcap we had in our back garden recently. We still have 3 of these birds feeding on apples and I was amazed at how aggressive they are to each other - even though there are four half-apples skewered onto the bushes, one bird wants command of them all, forcing another to fly down to cut-up apples on the lawn! Fascinating to watch and worth the small cost of a bag or two of Lidl fun-size apples.
Members might want to go out and stock up on apples, in fact, as Waxwings are arriving, a few having been spotted, two of which were in the RSPB Garden in Stromness just this afternoon, much to wardens Lorna Dow & Alan Leitch's delight! I'm hoping they might be heading out to Deerness pretty soon!
That's all for now. Please send items of interest to me for the next email.
Thanks
Pauline W/Local Group Sec.