WOS-BTO Birdwatchers' Conference 2021

Presenter

Kelvin Jones

Date

Saturday, November 6, 2021 - 10:00 to 16:00

Places

Fully booked

A virtual conference by the Welsh Ornithological Society and BTO Cymru, with a focus on farmland birds. Headline presentations from Ian Newton and Gavin Siriwardena, and more.

Our partnership national conference for 2021 will be a virtual event held hosted by the BTO on Saturday 6th November on Farmland and Birds in Wales, which was the theme chosen for the cancelled 2020 conference. There’ll be a programme of presentations with the opportunity for questions and discussion, quizzes, the usual review from WOS President, Iolo Williams, and summaries of activity from the BTO and RSPB. The headline presentations will be by Ian Newton OBE (morning) and Gavin Siriwardena OBE (afternoon).

Although this is, sadly, not a face-to-face conference we still need to charge for this to cover costs. Tickets are priced at £12, with discounted places at £7 for Welsh Ornithological Society members (this is one of the stated benefits of becoming a WOS member). Any surplus will be shared between the BTO and WOS for support for our research grants and student bursaries.

To book, click the button on the right.

One of the advantage of holding a virtual conference is that we can offer more places than usual, but we still advise early booking. Once you’ve booked, you’ll be able to participate in the whole conference, or dip in and out when you want to.

The provisional programme is shown below. All presenters have confirmed, but the timings may be subject to slight variations – we’ll keep you updated.

MORNING
10.00 Welcome by WOS Chair – Anne Brenchley
10.05 Introduction by WOS President – Iolo Williams
10.20 Birds and Farming – Ian Newton OBE (30 minutes + 10 for questions)
11.00 Birds of Wales Online polling quiz (Part 1)
11.05 Coffee/Tea break until 11.45 (make your own!)
11.45 Welcome back
11.50 Birds of Welsh Farmland – John Lloyd
12.10 Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) – Sorcha Lewis
12.30 The future for Welsh Farmland Birds – Arfon Williams RSPB
12.50 Questions for speakers
13.05 Birds of Wales Online polling quiz (Part 2)
13.15 Lunch break – sorry, it’s bring your own! During the lunch break a gallery of pictures from the 2020 WOS photo competition will be shown. Still plenty of time for you to enter the 2021 competition!

AFTERNOON
14.15 Introduction
14.20 Awards – Lifetime Achievement Award/Derek Moore Student Research Award
14:30 RSPB Cymru update – Neil Lambert
14:40 BTO Cymru update – Kelvin Jones
14:50 Agri-environment schemes in Wales: what do we know about their effect on birds? - Gavin Siriwardena OBE (30 minutes + 10 minutes for questions)
15:30 Birds of Wales Online polling quiz (Part 3) and answers
15.45 Final comments and goodbye

We look forward to welcoming you!
 

In order to participate you will need:

• broadband of sufficient speed to view live video 
• a computer with sound and ideally a webcam, or a tablet/smartphone.
• Access to Zoom

You’ll receive a link to the conference platform about a week before the conference, which will include advice on how to use Zoom if you are not familiar with it.

If you have any questions, or difficulties booking a place online, please email kelvin.jones [at] bto.org 

NOTE: Since this a partnership conference, personal details you supply when booking may be shared between WOS and the BTO, but only for the purposes of administering this conference.