Teesmouth Bird Club

 John Fletcher (Teesmouth Bird Club volunteer) has been undertaking a considerable amount of work on developing a history of the Teesmouth Bird Club, and the characters and people involved in the formation of the Club fifty years ago.  In his researches he has developed a history of birdwatchers of the Teesmouth area that tells the tale of the people who studied the birds and also, in many respects, via these vignettes, sheds much light on the changes that have taken place in the area itself.

... posted by Keith Bowey

pearls of Temperley

 Keith Bowey has been searching through George Temperley’s A History of the Birds of Durham, (1951) to find the ‘pearls’ of information that throw into perspective, or completely confound, our current knowledge of the birds of the county.  Who would have thought that Honey Buzzards (known as the’ big hawks’) once bred in the lower Derwent valley (where Red Kites now breed again) or that the famous Sunderland Bailon’s Crake was not the first one for the county of Durham.  Such snippets of historical information are being pulled together by the Natural History Society of Northumbria and Keith, for publication on-line later in the year.

... posted by Keith Bowey