Tuesday, September 2, 2014

INDOOR MEETINGS: AUTUMN 2014

The Cardiff Naturalists’ Society indoor meeting programme for 2014/2015 was recently announced. Click on the ‘Programme’ tab above to see the full programme.

Here, Indoors Meeting Secretary Hilary Wicks gives further information about the Autumn 2014 series of evening lectures. These all start at 7.30pm in Room 023 (ground floor) of the Cardiff School of Management (Metropolitan University, Llandaff Campus, Western Ave, Llandaff, Cardiff), unless otherwise stated. If lost, members can ask at the Main Building reception where a notice and signs to the lecture theatre will be placed.

The meetings start on Monday 22nd September with the AGM, followed with a talk by Linda and Rob Nottage on ‘Wildlife of the Dolomites’. Expect photos of snow-capped peaks, flower-filled meadows, and interesting insects, as they present highlights of their recent wildlife holiday in Italy.

The next lecture on Monday 13th October is by Sally Snow: ‘The world’s largest fish: an introduction to the whale sharks of the Philippines’. She will introduce us to the whale shark, the world’s largest fish, with fascinating insights into its biology, distribution and migration in the Philippines, with a look at the potential impacts of developing whale shark tourism initiatives both in the Philippines and worldwide. This lecture centres around the work of the NGO Physalus and its Large Marine Vertebrate Project, which has been studying whale sharks in the Philippines since 2011.

The following meeting on Wednesday October 22nd will be a talk by Paul E Bowden: ‘Birds and Mammals of Southern India (Bangalore to Kochi)’. He found Southern India a great place to visit in January, with favourable weather - a little rainfall and the temperature not too hot. Also at that time of year there was very little insect activity, so no malaria tablets were needed. He covered about 1,000 km (630 miles) in a three-week journey that took in Bangalore (Karnataka), Valparai (Tamil Nadu), and Thrissur and Kochi (Kerala), visiting five Nature Reserves. He recorded a total of 181 species of birds, including 14 endemics, and captured 113 species on HD video and 83 species as stills; while also photographing leopard, tiger, Asian Elephant, mongoose, spotted deer and numerous other mammals. Tea and rubber plantations were visited, and the journey included a drive across the Western Ghats. The whole trip was done by taxi, which he suggests is the best way to travel in India. By the end of the trip, the taxi driver was well trained in bird and mammal recognition!

In contrast, the next lecture by Adrian Lloyd Jones on Monday 6th November is entitled ‘Return of the Beaver’. This will be an illustrated presentation on Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber) and how they create and manage wetland ecosystems for the benefit of many other species. The presentation will also cover the Welsh Beaver Project and its proposal for a reintroduction of the beaver to Wales.

The meeting on Thursday 13th November is a lecture by Kate Mortimer-Jones called ‘Seabed Life around Wales’. This is a combined meeting with Cardiff Group South and West Wales Wildlife Trust and Cardiff University student Wildlife Society, and will be held in the Wallace Lecture Theatre (Ground floor), Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff.

The last meeting in 2014 is the XMAS BASH on Monday 15 December, with Adam and Dave’s Biodiversity Quiz. They will test your (often obscure) knowledge of the plants and animals found in South Wales and the (crazy?) people who record them.

 

 

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