Following the success of the BTO/RSPB Regional Conference held in November 1994, it was agreed that a similar event be arranged five years later. The recent conference entitled ‘INTO THE MILLENNIUM – Bird Trends into the Next Century’ was arranged, as before, by Tony and Chris Johnson of the Bolton RSPB Members Group and Judith Smith, Greater Manchester BTO Region Representative and County Bird Recorder, all three of whom are members of the Society. The venue was Rivington Hall Barn, again filled to capacity with the seating for the 180 or so delegates and the good variety of displays and sales stalls set up round the hall. Although the event was supported by only about ten members of the Society, most of whom are also members of the Bolton RSPB Group, other keen birders from societies throughout Lancashire and Greater Manchester attended. There were also representatives from professional bodies such as English Nature, various Countryside Ranger Services and Museums.

The morning session, which was chaired by Tony Johnson, started with an illustrated talk ‘Into the Next Century; the way ahead’ by Tim Melling, a young man who was born in Horwich and is now a Conservation Officer at the RSPB’s North West Office. He painted rather a gloomy picture of the decline in bird species, particularly farmland birds such as Corn Buntings, Yellowhammers, Tree Sparrows and Skylarks, and the increase of less welcome birds such as Magpies and Woodpigeons. Only a complete change in the Common Agricultural Policy would seem to be the solution to the problems faced by farmland birds. He also highlighted the continuing persecution of raptors, such as Hen Harriers on moorland areas.

Next came a talk on ‘Visible Migration over the Southern Pennines’ by Keith Clarkson of Sheffield. He began by saying that as a teenager he had three loves in his life, his girlfriend, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and bird watching at a reservoir on the outskirts of Sheffield. He is now married to someone else, still watches football and is a professional ecologist with the Peak District National Park Authority! He has studied visible migration for many years and showed lots of interesting facts and figures on the species and times of birds migrating over the moorland areas near Sheffield.

This was followed by a most entertaining talk ‘Birds in a Gardener’s World’ by Andrew Cannon who runs the BTO Garden BirdWatch scheme. His responsibilities include extracting information from the survey forms completed by about 11,000 volunteers who record the birds in their gardens throughout the year and using the data to find out how garden birds are changing. He mentioned some of the habits and food preferences of the different species. Siskins began feeding in gardens several years ago and more recently Long-tailed Tits have taken to peanuts but Sparrowhawks still wont eat peanuts unless they are inside Bluetits! [Note: to date, Lionel and Hilary haven’t managed to find a supplier of bluetit-coated peanuts to sell to members of the Society who wish to attract Sparrowhawks into their gardens]. Ken and I were so inspired by Andrew’s talk that we have now paid the £10 fee to join in this recording scheme.

The final talk of the morning was by Richard Bashford, the National Organiser of the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). The BBS, carried out by volunteers throughout the UK including a few members of the Society, provides information on year-to-year and longer-term changes in bird populations across a wide range of habitats. He compared the results of this simplified scheme, which has now been running for five years, with those of the much more detailed long standing Common Birds Census (CBC). Similar trends are being highlighted by both schemes, such as the worrying decline of farmland birds and even common species such as House Sparrows and Starlings.

Hot-pot lunch and the opportunity to look at the sales stalls and exhibits gave our bodies much needed exercise after sitting for over three hours. It was then back to our seats for the afternoon session, chaired by Jim Jeffery, BTO Regional Development Officer for Manchester. ‘Are we saving our Skylarks?’ was the question discussed by Juliet Vickery, Head of the Terrestrial Ecology Unit at the BTO, in her illustrated talk. She described the survey work currently taking place to estimate Skylark populations across the regions and habitat types. The dependency of this species on arable land has been confirmed and the loss of winter feeding areas, such as stubble fields, because of agricultural intensification, has been a large contributory factor in the decline of farmland birds. The policy of ‘Set Aside’ appears to have been of value to Skylarks as there has been a higher breeding success of pairs nesting in this habitat. However, there is still a downward trend and more needs to be done to reverse the fortunes of farmland birds.

Baz Hughes, of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust was the only speaker making a return visit. His work at the Trust focuses on conserving threatened species and at the last conference he spoke about the problems with Ruddy Ducks interbreeding with the endangered White-headed Duck in Spain. This time his topic was on another aspect of his research, that of the conflicts raised by fish-eating birds such as Cormorants and Goosanders. Although it has not been proved that such birds deplete fish stocks, they certainly are disliked by many fishermen and get a bad press!

After a welcome break for tea and biscuits, the final presentation was ‘The importance of the Mersey Basin for wintering Pochard and Tufted Ducks’ by Stuart Marsden of Manchester Metropolitan University. He explained that the large numbers of these ducks using the waters at Salford Quays for overnight feeding had been discovered accidentally when he went for a walk there in the dark! Due to disturbance at Salford Quays during the daytime, the birds go to other parts of the Mersey to roost for that part of the day and then return each evening.

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