Morrey Salmon and Geoffrey Ingram's Diaries - March 1913

Working on the Morrey Salmon images such as the one of a Blackbirds nest taken in April 1912  it became clear that there was a lot of untapped information in the diaries that the National Museum of Wales had stored as part of the Collection 

However on initial review it became clear that what the Museum had stored as Morrey Salmon's diaries were actually Geoffrey Ingram's and the Salmon diaries were missing. 

Luckily a number of the Salmon diaries have been located by the family and have been passed to the project team and are now being transcribed (the handwriting is difficult) and we have the following from this time 102 years ago

Sunday 2nd March 1913	6.4am. HNS & HMS. Port Talbot to Porthcawl.
Saturday 8th March 1913	5.45am.  HMS.  Radyr Quarry & Wood.  Found beginning of 1 Thrushes nest and another half finished & partly lined.  Wren not started under old tree.  Heard Goldcrest.  Saw Redwing & Bullfinch.

This suggests that he went to the first location with someone else (it could be one of his brothers or Herbert Short) and the second location himself. His entries are very brief 

Compare that with the following by Geoffrey Ingram who kept a fascinating detailed diary of bird sightings and behaviour at this same time 

March 2nd 1913

Watched a Missle Thrush mobbing a pair of Jackdaws in the grounds of Roath Court. The birds wished to alight on a beech tree that the Thrush had evidently selected as a nesting site 7 it was very amusing to watch is chasing the poor Doves from pillar to post

March 5th 1913

Started out by myself at 6.10 A.M. for the Wild Park. Thrushes, Blackbirds, Robins & Hedge Sparrows singing as I cycled up. A number of Duck on the lake mostly Mallards & Tufted although I heard a Wigeons whistle several times. Chaffinches & Wren singing as I entered the Wild Gardens Had a look through the wood & around the South-east end but found no signs of any nest. Saw a Magpie & heard a Green Woodpecker. Also saw a pair of Long Tailed Tits two or three Moorhens Great Tits, Blue Tits, & heard the Bullfinches. Nice clear morning & very mild Marsh Mallows, Daisy’s & Primroses in bloom & leaves appearing on Hawthorn, Honeysuckle, Field Rose & a number of other Trees & Shrubs

All of their records went into the Cardiff Naturalists Bird reports and subsequently into the County Avifaunas and we owe these pioneers a huge debt of gratitude for their work which we can now use to see how the city and climate have changed over the intervening 102 years    

Note the spelling of Mistle thrush, this is how it was recorded in his early dairies, the more usual modern spelling was adopted later

Picture now copyright National Museum of Wales, used under CNS licence

The Salmon family visits the archive project

 The volunteers working on the Morrey Salmon photographic project were honoured last friday (16/Jun/23) to have a visit by Hugh Salmon and his two daughters, Jennifer and Fiona

We described the process we are doing and Hugh made a short but moving speech about how much the family was feeling honoured by the dedication of all these people putting in their own time to clean and conserve the photographs 

Hugh (seated) with Jennifer and Mike Dean to his left and Jana Horak (NMW) and Fiona to his right 

Hugh, Jennifer and Fiona have the clenaing process described as Julian Carter (NMW) looks on and Julian Carter (CNS) cleans a negative

Hugh, Jennifer and Fiona with Morrey's picture in the background 

As you can see from the pictures, we were hosted on this day by Jana Horak and Julian Carter from the National Museum of Wales. NMW staff have been overseeing us and helping us with all of the work  

Morrey Salmon Photographic collection

We're up and running fully now with the Morrey Salmon Photographic collection cleaning (and subsequently digitsing). 

Here he is in the 1980s with his third camera 

Copyright National Museum of Wales used under CNS licence

He was recognised as an incredible man notonly in this field but because of his military service in WW1 and WW2. Some of that is noted in his biography 

“Col. Morrey Salmon must now be regarded as the father of British bird photography” (Eric Hosking OBE. Bird photographer).

“He was a legendary figure from way back in the early days of conservation in this country” (Sir Peter Scott CH, CBE, DSC & Bar, FRS, FZS, Founder of the WWT and WWF).

“He – by quite extraordinary efforts well outside what might be regarded as a norm – made a major contribution to RAF operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Balkans. His dedication and professional competence set a standard which has been reflected in RAF Regiment operations ever since” (Air Vice-Marshall Donald Pocock).

“I especially valued the leadership he was able to give in Wales in regard to ornithology and conservation” (Max Nicholson, President RSPB).

“He was a great Naturalist and a great Welshman” (Roger Lovegrove RSPB).

From his first bird photograph taken in 1909 to his later work we will be looking at it all 

Lapwing by Morrey Salmon copyright National Museum of Wales used under CNS licence

After the introduction training a couple of weeks ago where Lisa from the National Museum of Wales taught us how to clean glass lantern slides and glass negatives we had our first full session today with about 100 glass negatives cleaned and repackaged into acid free archival envelopes. 

This is a "long haul project" with over 3600 objects currently noted to be dealt with and that doesn't mean just cleaning and repackaging we have to identify the pictures and locations and put information togetether about each one from his diaries and notebooks and other CNS resources so there is a long way to go. 

But we thought you may like to see a few pictures of the current volunteers at work and some of the pictures we are already working on. 

As you can see from the sparrow on the birdbox some of the pictures are sadly in a bad way, but many more are in almost perfect condition and the quality of the photography given the equipment available is nothing less than amazing. 

There is a lot more of this story to tell so keep watching out for future posts.

An Evening with Iolo Williams - Pictures from the evening

It was a SELL OUT ! and we had a wonderful time!

Even before the event it was clear that Iolo was a success with the crowd and he happily spent so much time having his picture taken that we had to ask some people to go directly in 

And it wasn't just the public who wanted a picture he made sure that the Museum warding staff felt welcome to pose for a picture

Once we did manage to get everyone to their seats, our president Chris Franks made the introductions and welcomed everyone to the event

It wasn't long before Iolo was entertaining us all with his tales of learning to tickle fish in his younger years

His explanations of how he had worked with the Gurka's and SAS on the protection of wild bird nests during his 15 years with the RSPB had the whole audience in raptures.

 And his tales of working with the television crews on many programs including springwatch (team in the background) were fascinating

Questions and Answers would have probably gone on all night had we permitted it !

but we had to bring things to a close with the drawing of our prize raffle (winner Judith Bradley collecting the first prize from Iolo)

After that we went into the main hall for the private reception for members.

Sorry if you have recently joined - we would have loved to have everyone through for that for everyone and new members included, but  it would have been cost prohibitive and we had to make that a member offer before the general ticket sales started

We did manage to get this picture of former and current presidents with Iolo.

From left to Right : - Steve Howe, Joan Andrews, Andy Kendall, Thomas Henry Thomas (statue of the 16th president created for the museum Dinosaur Babies exhibition), Linda Nottage, Iolo Williams, Patricia Wood, Chris Franks)

A good time was had by all...

Especially Chris ...

The Last Few Iolo Tickets are on sale

We've just had an update from the Museum,

The tickets are down to the last few so if anyone is thinking of coming and not got their tickets yet they really do need to get organized and book them now via

https://www.ticketlineuk.com/ticket/453782/noson-gyda-iolo-williams-an-evening-with-iolo-williams-amgueddfa-genedlaethol-caerdydd-national-muse/

Please help us spread the word

With this 2017 / 2018 Autumn and Spring events poster 

With direct information about how to get tickets for the Iolo Williams evening at the National Museum of Wales - Amgueddfa Cymru

Information on the Museum exhibition at the Cardiff Story Museum 

and more 

Its in an easily shared and printed PDF format

You can get the poster HERE

Press Release - An Evening with Iolo Williams at National Museum Cardiff

An Evening with Iolo Williams at National Museum Cardiff

This year Cardiff Naturalists’ Society marks its 150th Anniversary with a series of fascinating events, starting with a prestigious lecture and an exhibition at National Museum Cardiff in October.

As part of the celebrations and in light of their close association with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, they will be hosting “An Evening with Iolo Williams” in the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre at the Museum in Cathays Park, Cardiff, at 7:00 pm on October 5th 2017.

Famous Welsh naturalist Iolo will be talking about a whole range of topics, including insights into the making of his many natural history programmes for television, as well as a taking a question and answer session.

Iolo Williams is a Welsh naturalist, broadcaster, public speaker and writer who’s worked in conservation for over 30 years. He’s a patron of several Welsh conservation organisations and is currently president of the Welsh Ornithological Society. He’s undertaken charity walks up Kilimanjaro for Velindre Cancer Care and has twice trekked the length of Wales for Air Ambulance and Hope House/Ty Hafan children’s hospices

He is well known as an empassioned speaker who is utterly dedicated to conservation and gives informative and entertaining talks about Birds of Prey and Wildlife in Wales. He is most widely known as a popular member of the Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch presenting team and for presenting series such as Wild Wales, Rugged Wales and Great Welsh Parks for BBC 2.

Tickets for the evening are priced at £12.00 for adults and £6.00 for children, with an extra special event as part of the evening for members of the society. There is also a chance to get his books signed at the event.

This event will also feature an Audio-Visual presentation showing some of the wonderful world-wide wildlife and environments that Cardiff Naturalists’ hear about in winter indoor meetings and some of the things we have seen on trips to local wildlife sites, it will feature some of the unusual and rare things we have found in recent years.

Also in our 150th year there will be an exhibition at the Cardiff Story Museum, The Hayes, Cardiff, entitled "Cardiff Naturalists' Society: The first 150 years!" showing the rich history of the society and the many things its members have contributed to the city of Cardiff, the wider South Wales area and the whole of the UK.

The exhibition will run from Monday September 4th to Sunday November 26th 2017

Entry to the Cardiff Story Museum is free, opening hours are available on http://www.cardiffstory.com/

To keep up to date on these events and for further information about the society please visit our website or via social media on our: -

Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/CardiffNaturalists/

Twitter feed @CardiffNats 

Blog http://cardiffnaturalists.blogspot.com/

For further details please contact the society via email to info@cardiffnaturalists.org.uk  secretary@cardiffnaturalists.org.uk

Issue 110 of the Newsletter is now Online

Issue 110 of the Newsletter is now Online HERE 

Articles and announcements include :-

Cardiff Naturalists' Society celebrates 150 years with announcements of

• Prestigious Lecture: An Evening with Iolo Williams with a special event for members at the National Museum of Wales 
• An exhibition at The Cardiff Story

Also: -

• Call for pictures for 150th anniversary events; 
• Biosciences Prize 2017 Eve Treadaway; 
• Weather Report for Cardiff 2016; Members’ Evening 2017; 
• Cardiff Birdwatch 2017; 
• Ruperra Castle Preservation Trust

The Wonderful World of Worms

Teresa Darbyshire of the National Museum of Wales gave us an excellent short talk after our AGM on The Wonderful World of Worms: Marine Bristleworms (Polychaetes) & Their Importance





This was an interesting talk and I had never realised how important these creatures were in understanding the marine environment around us in Wale. There is information about this work available on the Museum Website at http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/160/

Having seen some wonderful pictures Teresa was happy to answer a number of questions and key amongst these were questions about identification and she told us that there are plans for an on-line system similar to the excellent website about British Bivalves..


What website you ask... well here it is http://naturalhistory.museumwales.ac.uk/britishbivalves/Browse_taxa.php