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RSPB LOCAL GROUP

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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity: and Wales no. 207076, Scotland no.SCO37654

Group Leader: Barry Bishop SPRING 2019 NEWSLETTER

YORK LG TRIP TO the excellent trip made In this issue NORTH-EAST HUNGARY there in 2017. AND SLOVAKIA IN 2020 You should find enclosed in GARDEN TASKS FOR LG trip to Hungary your newsletter envelope, SPRING and Slovakia 2020 (or attached with your copy A reminder that birds still of the newsletter if you like to be fed during the receive it electronically), a spring and summer, it LG trip to Mull and flyer for a proposed trip to keeps the adults fit at this Iona 2020 north-eastern Hungary and exhausting time of year Slovakia. raising the young. Although Garden Tasks Your LG committee chicks and young birds are carefully weighed up the often fed on insect food, a options proposed by supply of high energy seed Note from the Editor ourselves and Bird for the adults never goes Holidays and came to this amiss! Please see Val and Heather Reynolds choice, based on location, Larry at indoor meetings to range of potential birds to replenish your supply. be seen and that we have Leader’s notes not been to central Europe NOTE FROM THE for a while. EDITOR Local walk and trip This is a most interesting You will notice this reports area with possible great newsletter is of eight pages bustards, numerous exotic instead of the ‘usual’ 12

woodpecker and owl due to the risk of exceeding Cakes Galore! species, and ‘side trips’ for the weight allowed for the wine tasting and to an ice 2nd Class postage. This is Postage Stamps cave! because of the inclusions Please apply direct to Bird of the flyers for the Holidays and keep an eye proposed 2020 Hungary Spring and Summer on the LG website for and Isle of Mull trips. programme further details. In this edition I would like to Brafferton Wood LG TRIP TO ISLE OF thank all contributors and if MULL AND IONA IN 2020 you have any ideas on the

Also enclosed is a flyer for content or would like to Coach booking form a trip to the Isle of Mull and provide a photo of birding Iona, organised by Barry interest or short article etc. and Deidre Brown Travel, please let me know. hopefully even excelling Peter Reed [email protected]

This newsletter is co-edited by Peter Reed (01904 492494) and Chris Lloyd. Views expressed, or advertisements contained in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSPB or the York Group Committee. www.rspb.org.uk/groups/york HEATHER REYNOLDS

Our friend Heather Reynolds died after a long illness in November 2018. She played a major role in the establishment and early years of the York RSPB Members Group. We both moved to York in the early ‘70s and Tom was very surprised and disappointed to find that there was no Group here, and asked the then RSPB Development Officer, Trevor Gunton, to come to a meeting in York in early 1973 to assess how much interest there might be in forming one. The attendees were largely drawn from the members of the York Ornithological Club, which had been active in the York area since the 1960s. Heather was amongst them. A committee was duly formed to establish and run the Group. The first leader was Tony Dennison, and some of the original members are still involved: the two of us, Jenny Dixon, and Terry and Val Weston. Others, like Heather, are sadly no longer with us. The first indoor meeting was in late 1973 and the first full annual programme started in 1974. Heather was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable committee member, who invariably got stuck-in on day one. She was a willing helper on major events like the RSPB Members Weekend, which came to York annually and took a huge amount of volunteer effort, as well as leading some of the longer birding trips. In early 1977 one of us (John) took over and Heather and the rest of the committee gave me terrific support, but by 1982 pressure of work meant I had to stand down, and Heather took over. The Members Group thrived under her watchful eye. New committee members included Peter Watson, Elaine Blake and Colin Rafton; Colin has been involved since 1983 and is surely the Group’s longest serving member. These were busy times, with (amongst many other activities) an annual stall at the Great Show, and fund raising for RSPB activities including a boat at Fairburn Ings, the production of a bird book for Jordan, two motorbikes for local conservationists in Ghana, a donation to the Geoff Smith hide at North Duffield Carrs and the 1984 Minsmere Storm Appeal. Heather led by example, nicely illustrated by this little story from Don Hoad. “Anne and I first met Heather in January 1986. We were visiting a snow covered Castle Howard Estate where Heather was to be found helping out at an RSPB ‘show people birds’ event. She was her usual busy self but lost no time before chatting to us. She quickly decided that we were potential RSPB members and in no time at all we were recruited and signed up! Of course she took the opportunity to make sure that we knew all about the York RSPB Local Group. When she helped push our car out of a snow drift we knew we had joined a friendly Group! Before long Heather encouraged us to become Group committee members and in no time I found myself as Group Leader (as Heather had intended all along!). When subsequently I was elected to RSPB Council I think she felt as delighted as I was myself! She herself would have made a perfect Council Member.” By the time Heather retired in 1988 she had been on the committee for 15 years. Her contribution was enormous, recognised in 1989 during the Centenary Year of the RSPB which was celebrated in York that spring at the Members Weekend. She was too modest to boast about it, but she

Page 2 deservedly received the RSPB’s President’s Award from Magnus Magnusson on behalf of the York Group during the Centenary celebrations. As well as her long service as a Group committee member and then leader, Heather found time and the enthusiasm to help with, and for a time lead, the York branch of the RSPB Young Ornithologists Club between its foundation in 1974 (but we don’t know exactly when she undertook this role) until the 1990’s. Several of its young enthusiasts are today’s star birders and conservationists. On one memorable occasion she and Harry Hulse were leading a coach trip to Filey, dutifully counting the youngsters on and off the bus at various stops. At the last stop, as the young birders re-joined the bus, they discovered they had acquired an extra child, who had decided that the birding trip was much more interesting than being with their parents! It is not recorded what the parents said when re-united with their daughter. We will miss Heather. We will miss her wicked sense of humour, her love of and enthusiasm for birds, flowers and other wildlife, and above all her friendship.

Tom Lawson and John Lawton

From the RSPB York Group Leader

As I write these notes sand martins and swallows are making a welcome appearance on our local reserves.

The group A.G.M. will be held next month and there are two vacancies on the committee. We need someone to organise outings - I have carried out this role since Colin Rafton left the committee and at the moment I don’t have the time to organise more than 2/3 outings a year. Lynne Borthwick has been our membership secretary for several years and has decided not to seek re-election at this year’s A.G.M. This role involves keeping a record of local group memberships, printing labels for the newsletters and putting the newsletters into envelopes. Pleased speak to me or any other member of the committee if you would like to become involved or would like more information.

Included with your newsletter are two flyers for holidays we would like to run next year. I will be leading one to Mull and Iona. The plan is to stay on Iona for three nights. This will giv