Club AGM and presentation

Hello

On Wednesday 4th March the club holds it's Annual General Meeting at our usual venue of the Fishing Lodge at Pitsford Reservoir, commencing at 7.30pm. There will be a brief review of the preceding year and an opportunity for members to ask questions of the committee. It is anticipated that all members will receive a summary of the accounts as circulated by email beforehand.

The AGM is traditionally a quick affair and we then relax to enjoy a presentation by club member Jeff Blincow on his selection of mammals and gaudy birds from his travels in South America. Jeff provides a presentation to the club in most years and his quality images and in-depth knowledge and personal style is much enjoyed by the membership.

Hot drinks and biscuits will be available and the committee looks forward to seeing you there!

Regards

Neil M

Old Ornithological Books

Mick Coles, has some of his late father's books for sale. Anyone interested in purchasing any of these old books for a small fee, please go to the For Sale tab for more details.
All monies will be donated to The Woodland Trust charity.

The Photo Comp, a brief revue

Hi all, as always the photographic competition is one of the NBC's highlights of the year.
With photographers eager to see where their images ranked and non photographers looking forward to seeing some amazing images.

This year (2019) didn't disappoint. 16 photographers entered the array, more than we have had at anytime in the past.
Placements of the top 3 positions were gained by 14 of those photographers. This also being more
than before.

Over 320 images in total had been entered, not including the captioned category.
Now to be fair this is a photographic competition and not restricted purely to bird photography.
I realise we are essentially a bird club, but it is interesting to note that photographers are now also including many images outside the birding categories and into the non birding ones. In fact there is almost a 50/50 split between the 6 bird categories and the remaining 7 categories.

I think this is good news, making the possibility of having a different element taking the overall vote.

The most contested categories were, first Northant's Birds with 41 entries, as it should be. Other Invertebrates with 37 entries second and not unexpectedly third, Butterflies, Moths and Caterpillars with 34 entries.

So the bird images were fabulous but so were lots of other images, Bob's Frogs, jump to mind, Dave Thomas's Red-billed Oxpeckers, on an antelope, what a great perspective for animals in their environment, just to cite a couple, as there were many more worthy winners.

Out of 325 entries there are only 39 places up for grabs. So to get into these echelons you will have done pretty well. One cannot fail to notice though, the number of positions gained by Dave Jackson, maybe we should all take a leaf from his book.

I do hope everyone enjoyed the evening. I'm sorry if the images were skipped thro' a little quickly on the night. This was to ensue that the evening finished at a respectable time for all concerned.

I have the feeling that next year's competition will be even more exciting.

Cheerz Robin.

RED SQUIRREL by John Tilley.

NBC Photographic Comp

Hi all, just a quick mention, for those who wish to see, the final results of our photographic competition are now ready for your viewing pleasure. Just double click on the Short-eared Owl.

Photographic Competition 5th Feb

Hello

This coming Wednesday (5th Feb) is the club annual photo competition. It is always a memorable night with images from members displayed and all attempting to win the prestigious Graham Soden shield.

The images will be displayed in categories and I understand there is a record number of entries this year. All the submissions have been viewed by an independent judge who has selected the top three in each category. However the overall winner is selected by the members on the night!

The meeting starts very promptly at 7.30pm in order to get through all the images and hot drinks and biscuits will be on tap as usual - perhaps we might be consuming more than usual if this is going to be a marathon event!

Please come down and enjoy the evening!

Neil M

Brown Bear courtesy
of Robin Gossage.

Bar-tailed Godwit.