e ______________________________________ RSPB CHE STER GROUP NEWSLETTER Edition 99 rspb.org.uk/groups/chester facebook.com/RSPBChester August 2020 @RSPBChester ______________________________________ Yellowhammer – Summer 2020 ©Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com) Group Leader’s Spot By Norman Sadler Dear Members, This is probably the strangest article I have written for your newsletter. But we live in strange times. Your committee has been meeting on Zoom instead of face to face. Updates from The Lodge have been delivered by senior staff via video links. Several of our key contacts in the charity have been and still are, furloughed. For the first time since I retired four years ago, I am booked on a course next week to learn new skills on how to host a webinar. See the later article on what your group is doing to stay in touch. During May and June, I have been getting my socially distanced bird fix by getting up early and going out for the dawn chorus alone. Those that know me probably know that I am not a natural morning person, to the point that our grandson, Robin, calls me Grumpy. However, I have rediscovered the delight in being out at 04:30 to listen to glorious birdsong including blackcap, sedge warbler, chiffchaff, willow warbler, whitethroat, robin, wren etc. Although most of my trips have been very local (Hockenhull Platts is the favourite), I have also been up to Larkton Hill on the Sandstone Trail (where I heard my first cuckoo in years) and the Countess of Chester Park behind the hospital. Quite by chance, I met Joe getting his fix at Hockenhull one morning at 05:00. Joe volunteers with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and was also one of our volunteer leaders when your group ran a YOC group some years ago. He was out looking for signs of an otter. They have returned to the River Gowy now it has been cleaned up from farm runoff. Joe has an infra-red camera film of them there. He asked whether I had heard the Cetti's warbler. Cettis warbler in Waverton? But he must have had one in his back pocket because just as we were catching up, there was the unmistakable explosion of one from the trees behind us. Many years ago, as a teenager learning my birding skills in Kent, there used to be big twitches on to tick Cetti's warbler in Stodmarsh, the large reedbed nearest to France. They were recorded as rare visitors to the South East of England. Now we have them in Waverton (On another morning I clocked two individuals at Hockenhull)!. They are also well known now as far north as Leighton Moss. Other unusual sightings were a pair of lapwing with a youngster at a pond close to Hockenhull and a really good view of a barn owl returning from its night of hunting. I have also been enjoying the other end of the day. Being fortunate in having a canal frontage means we get a lot of bats flying over our garden late in the evening. My knowledge of bats is limited and of course, my hearing has now declined so I cannot hear them like I could in my youth. Still, it is no effort to sit outside on a gloriously warm evening, with a glass of wine and try to identify 2 the bat species against the big sky. There are at least two, possibly three, species that are distinguished just by their behaviour. Any bat specialists out there that can bring me up to speed with identification? Hopefully, you have all been enjoying nature a bit more in lockdown and hopefully, nature has done its bit to keep you sane. The Chester Group and the RSPB, in general, appreciate your continued support in these difficult times. Stay Safe. The Membership Secretary’s Report By Margaret Bain HAVE YOU JOINED YOUR LOCAL GROUP? National RSPB membership does not automatically make you a member of your local group. We must pay our own expenses. Your RSPB Chester Group subscription fee helps to pay our costs, including hall hire, speakers’ fees, printing and postage of newsletters and programmes, etc. Any surplus funds are passed on to the RSPB for use in conservation projects. CHESTER GROUP ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEES Family / couple £10 Individual £6 Concessionary £5 Membership fees are due in September each year, at the start of our annual season of talks. We are now at the start of the 2020-2021 season and it is time to renew your membership for this year. I have enclosed a renewal form with the newsletter for you to fill in with any changes in your details, especially email. With the present situation, where we need to keep you informed of changes quickly, it is important that you give us your current email address. The fees have not changed and please send the money to me. Under new privacy legislation, we will in future be obliged by law, to remove your details from our database within a few months, if you do not renew your membership. We would then be unable to send you any more renewal reminders, newsletters, or programmes of the trips as well as the speakers at the indoor meeting. If you no longer want to be a member of the group, please could you let me know by emailing me [email protected] Thank you. 3 Broxton Barn Owl Group – BBOG Due to the COVID-19 virus all events have been cancelled until further notice. In Memoriam: Mary Prince By Margaret Bain Sadly, Mary Prince died peacefully on Wednesday, May 27 because her body was no longer able to fight Parkinson’s Disease. Mary was a founder member of our group, as she went to the Queen’s Hotel to hear a discussion about setting up a Chester local members group and joined as soon as it started. Mary asked me to go along for company, as she knew I was interested in birds and from then until very recently she had been an active member coming to both the indoor meetings and field trips. Mary was a big part of my birding life as we learnt to identify birds from our numerous books but the field trips widen our horizons as well as knowledge gained from more experienced members of the group. Mary’s wit and friendship will be missed by many of our group and staff at the Queen’s school where she taught languages for many years. Mary leaves behind Dave her husband Ruth and Mike her children as well as three grandchildren. Coronavirus and Meetings By Norman Sadler Your committee has had lots and varied discussions around how or when we can restart “normal” activities. RSPB has been no different from other membership groups in trying hard to restore business as usual, while keeping people safe. As a group, we are bound to follow the advice and instructions we are getting from central office. Currently, that advice is that we should not hold indoor meetings or field trips before the end of 2020. (See Ian’s considered article regarding field trips). This is obviously a major disappointment but given the current level of government instructions, it is sensible. However, your local group committee is trying to present a semblance of entertainment that we hope as many of you as possible can enjoy. I am sure a few of you are using the internet in ways you did not know existed to stay in touch “face to face” with much-missed family and friends. Your committee has held several meetings on Zoom and we are getting better at that. 4 We are looking to host a webinar with one of our scheduled speakers, or even share with other local groups to get a special guest. We are still trying to work out the best platform for this and I have signed up for a training session on how best to manage such an event. This newsletter is one way we can reach out to our membership but it incurs costs to produce and post. However, there are still several members who are either not on the internet or have declined to allow us to contact them via email. We are committed to continuing to produce this missive. We will soon be asking you to renew your membership, production and distribution of this newsletter is what most of your membership fees fund. However, I would encourage you to let us use your email address for immediate contact. Rest assured, your details are held securely and we do not pass them on to third parties. It would make life simpler though to be able to update everyone on what we are doing if we make plans at short notice. In the meantime, Nick and Helen are doing a wonderful job of keeping our website and social media updated with our plans. If we do host virtual meetings, they will be announced there first. Website: rspb.org.uk/groups/chester Twitter: @RSPBChester Facebook: facebook.com/rspbchester Please stay connected and more importantly, stay safe! Field trips and Coronavirus By Ian Cameron I write this article in the first week of July – I will let the reader determine if it is ancient history. It has been a very varied year from the trip report side. Firstly, we had adverse weather on three of the 2019 weekends selected for field trips, so they were cancelled. Now we have entered the period of COVID- 19 and all the field trips were cancelled from March 2020.