Herts Bird Club

We are delighted to announce that the annual Herts Bird Club / British Trust for Ornithology will go ahead this year – as an online event on the morning of Saturday March 20.

The programme, which runs from 10.30am to 12.40pm, combines speaker presentations with popular perennials such as Graham Knight's 'What did you miss?' review of county birding highlights for 2020 and the bird photograph of the year.

Congratulations to Joe Gray, the Herts recorder for terrestrial bugs, whose first-published natural history book takes the overlooked wealth of 'backyard' wildlife as its theme. Titled Thirteen Paces by Four – the size of Joe's urban garden – it draws on encounters during the Coronavirus pandemic from invertebrates to mid-sized mammals.

Not only does Joe provide practical pointers on how gardens can be made more wildlife-friendly but he also explores topical issues with a broader environmental scope, such as sustainable agriculture and wiser use of water.

Hertfordshire has lost more than 70 per cent of its neutral, unimproved grasslands in the past half century, HNHS members were told in an online presentation on Saturday 28 November following the AGM.