Celebrating our 150th on BBC Radio Wales

Well... for those who have not met me and wonder what I sound like...

BBC Radio Wales called yesterday asking for an interview about the exhibition and the Society it had to be as early as I could get out of work as I had to go and meet the Lord Mayor at the exhibition opening.

The segment is just 4 minutes long you can hear the segment in this link

CLICK TO PLAY AUDIO

I really enjoyed their reaction to the last snippet of information I was able to give them - it won't mean much to people who don't live in Wales, but Coryton roundabout is Junction 32 on the M4 and it's a massive traffic roundabout

If you prefer to stream then a video version is now available on YouTube with Pictures from Andy Kendall, Rob & Linda Nottage, Phil Blanning & Linda Morris

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

Cardiff Naturalists’ Society marks 150th Anniversary with a series of fascinating events

This year Cardiff Naturalists’ Society www.cardiffnaturalists.org.uk marks its 150th Anniversary with a series of fascinating events, starting with a prestigious lecture and an exhibition.

In addition to its usual programme of wildlife, environmental and natural history events, it is hosting a special event entitled “An evening with Iolo Williams” in the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre at the Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff, at 7 pm on October 5th 2017.

Tickets for the Evening with Iolo Williams will be priced at £12.00 for adults and £6.00 for children, with a special event as part of the evening for members of the society.

Details of how to purchase tickets for the event will follow in the near future.

There will also 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.

This will also feature an Audio-Visual presentation showing some of the wonderful wildlife that we learn about in our indoor meetings and then head out to see on our trips to local wildlife sites, and some of the unusual and rare things we have found in recent years. 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/

Biosciences Prize 2017

Last night (27 March), Eve Treadaway was presented with the Biosciences Prize for 2017, awarded in memory of Prof Ursula Henriques and Dr Mary Gillham, at the last indoor meeting of the CNS winter season.

Eve flew back from Copenhagen where she is currently an Erasmus scholar, to talk to the Society about “Project Noise” - her Cardiff University Biosciences Department student project conducted at the Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Borneo. See the previous post for more about the project, which concerns rainforest bioacoustics.

The evening was completed with a talk by Andy Kendall on the volcanic landscapes and wildlife above and below ground in Lanzarote.

Bioscience Prize winner 2017

We congratulate Eve Treadaway for winning this year's Biosciences Prize. This is our annual student bursary, awarded in memory of past member Ursula Henriques, for the best second-year fieldwork project in the Biosciences faculty at Cardiff University.

She will receive the award at the Cardiff Naturalists' Society meeting on Monday 27 March, when she will also give a presentation of her work entitled "The biological and environmental factors that govern the ‘soundtrack’ of the secondary lowland tropical rainforest surrounding Danau Girang Field Centre", or, for short, 'Project Noise'.

Eve Treadaway writes: 

Project Noise set out to develop a new approach to rainforest bioacoustics, using the extensively described botanic plots of Danau Girang Field Centre, Sabah, Borneo as recording sites. Instead of training bioacoustic work on a particular species or taxonomic group, as is standard practice, this project attempted to record and analyse the bioacoustic product of the ecosystem as a whole, termed here ‘ambient rainforest sound’ (ARS). 

There are numerous interrelated factors that, summed together, result in observed ARS. These can be broadly divided into two groups; biological (i.e. the animal species present at a site) and environmental (i.e. weather, botanic diversity*, time). The aim was to investigate potential relationships both between factors of different groups and of factors within the same group. 

Project Noise was a small first step on the road toward assessing rainforest ecosystem biodiversity and functioning, simply by ‘listening’ to the sound produced. The findings were promising, and more extensive application of the methods employed would enable more powerful statistical analysis and preliminary algorithm design (estimating functioning/biodiversity from acoustic data).

I look forward to sharing Project Noise with the Cardiff Naturalists Society on the 27th of March 2017.