Talks & Lectures

SBBOT has a long tradition of offering courses, lectures and talks. Apart from the presentations below we also present evening programmes via zoom, such as our Wednesday Courses.

Thursday Evening Lecture Programme

Live at the Field Centre at 7.30pm

£6 per person including a hot drink and a biscuit - payable at the door on the night  (payments by credit/debit cards now available).

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Each year we book a wide range of speakers and subjects and although most talks are mainly about birds, there are other wildlife subjects included, such as talks on Dragonflies and Flowers etc.

Our talk programme also covers lots of different countries as well as more local topics.

(Volunteer request - we do need some people to help out again with the teas/coffees and car parking on each evening. Therefore, if you are able to help at either of the first couple of talks, then please email the talks organiser Ian Searle Once we are up running, Ian will be putting the volunteer sheet on the notice board for people to add their names too, the same as last year - thank you.)

Our Autumn through Spring 2026 programme will start on 17th September 2026

See details below!

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Looking for Goshawks

by award-winning author, conservationist and feature writer Conor Mark Jameson

7.30 - 9.00 17th September 2026

Conor will tell us about this magnificent but rarely seen raptor. He worked for the RSPB for 25 years and BirdLife International in Cambridge before becoming a full-time author. Conor’s book Looking for the Goshawk tells a fascinating tale, and his talk has been described by some groups as among the best they have ever hosted.
Photo courtesy of Chas Mooney
Conor is the author of the recent published biography Finding W. H. Hudson. His other books include Silent Spring Revisited and Shrewdunnit – a collection of his published writings. He is Ugandan-born Scots-Irish, now living in Norfolk.
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My Big Year: the BBOWT Nature Reserve Challenge

by Jon Mason

7.30 - 9.00 September 24th 2026
In 2023 Jon Mason decided to visit all of BBOWT’s (Buckinghamshire, Berkshire & Oxfordshire) 83 nature reserves.
He did so to reassure himself that in this nature-depleted country there were still places rich in biodiversity. This talk is the photographic story of that year: the amazing wildlife he discovered close to his home in the Chiltern Hills and the issues facing our nature reserves that he became aware of from his visits.
Jon Mason was a geography teacher in secondary schools for four decades but now concentrates solely on his social media work as ‘theearlybirder’ on Instagram. He is an experienced speaker and has written numerous articles on natural history, making regular appearances at Global Bird Fair.
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Travels with a Camera

by John Draper

7.30 - 9.00 1st October 2026
John is fascinated by all aspects of nature from the Landscape through to the smallest invertebrates and has a passion for photographing them. The talk features Sri Lankan temples, moving onto Hummingbirds in the West Indies to Sunbirds in Sri Lanka, then onto Fruit Bats, Birds and Elephants in Sri Lanka followed by brief visits to Fair Isle and the St Kilda Archipelago then onto Ireland for Black Guillemots and Grey Seals finishing with some beach combing in Wales.
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The Wildlife and Production of Minster Marshes

by Connor Carruthers and George Cooper

7.30 - 9.00 8th October 2026
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Wild Estonia

by Wilf Powell

7.30 - 9.00 15th October 2026
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Aspiring UNESCO Cross-channel geo-park

by Greg Taylor, National Landscape Manager, Kent Downs National Landscape

7.30 - 9.00 22nd October 2026
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Chasing all the bird families of the world

by Peter Eerdmans

7.30 - 9.00 29th October 2026
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Remote Indonesia

by Barry Wright, Kent bird county recorder

7.30 - 9.00 5th November 2026
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'Pole Position' in protecting and presenting wildlife

by  Marek Borkowski

7.30 - 9.00 12th November 2026
Poland from the privileged perspective of a naturalist permanently living amongst the protected species and presenting how such life and work help to get stunning views of difficult and/or rare species, techniques of finding and watching them. Birds from Eagles to Aquatic warblers, Bears, Lynx, Elk etc are all included in this fascinating talk.
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Nightingales and turtle doves: managing a disused apple orchard in Kent for nature

by Keith & Penny Dugmore

7.30 - 9.00 19th November 2026
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Birds in History, Myth & Folklore

by John Cantelo

7.30 - 9.00 26th November 2026
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Special Members Evening

with multiple speakers each giving short talks with photos and stories of their experiences of the natural world

7.30 - 9.00 3rd December 2026
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Morocco - An EasyJet flight away from Tchagras, Babblers and Bulbuls

by Brendan Ryan

7.30 - 9.00 10th December 2026
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Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory Trust review of 2026

by our wardens

7.30 - 9.00 17th December 2026
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2027

 

A season being a warden on Lundy

by Greg Lee (ex Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory assistant warden)

7.30 - 9.00 7th January 2027 
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The Jack Snipe - Britains least understood bird

by Jolene Orlowski & Kevin Clements

7.30 - 9.00 14th January 2027
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Managing Stodmarsh NNR

by Stefan Barton (Stodmarsh Warden)

7.30 - 9.00 21st January 2027
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An experience in Honduras

by Evan Davies (2026 SBBOT intern)

7.30 - 9.00 28th January 2027
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The Non-native Species Inspectorate: who we are and what we do

by Zoe Golding, (Senior non-native species inspector at the Animal and Plant Health Authority)

7.30 - 9.00 4th February 2027
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TBC
7.30 - 9.00 11th February 2027
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Tulips and other spring flowers of the Tien Shan Mountains, Kazakhstan

by Sue Buckingham

7.30 - 9.00 18th February 2027

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Pan-species Listing - how to become a super naturalist

by Graeme Lyons (Ecologist & Author)

7.30 - 9.00 25th February 2027
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The wilderness of Alaska

by Rob Rackliffe

7.30 - 9.00 4th March 2027
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Birding in the cloud forests of Ecuador - and a quick visit to the Amazon

by Ken Chapman

7.30 - 9.00 11th March 2027
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Butterflies of Kent

by Clive Nuttman

The appearance of these colourful insects is always a welcome sign of the approaching summer.  Kent has a wide variety of the 60 or so butterfly species native to Britain.

7.30 - 9.00 18th March 2027

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