Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory Trust (SBBOT)

General Field Craft

An introduction to good field behavior, what to wear, and what is essential to take with you. The evening will be rounded off by a fun (and hopefully enlightening) bird quiz.

Review of the summer

We are right in the middle of the autumn migration. Why and how do birds do this? What species are migrating now?

Bird nests and their eggs

Identification of birds nests and eggs and how to identify breeding behaviour - an essential aspect of the monitoring of local populations.

Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Lesser Whitethroats

Three warbler migrants moving at the moment – what are they like, where are they going and why?

Bird Song I

The first of a series of evenings dedicated to understanding the significance of bird song and identifying songs / calls of a number of local species. This is a very important aspect of identifying birds and also ascertaining their breeding status.

Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins

How to tell them apart and what we know about them. They are collectively called hirundines because of their Latin names.

Woodpeckers

An evening focusing on this fascinating and diverse group of birds: the breeding, distribution and identification of all four British Woodpeckers.

Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Robins

Everything you ever wanted to know about these fascinating species – they are much more complicated than you might think! Sandwich Bay is on the main migration routes of these species and we have lots of bits of information about them

The effect of urban development on wildlife

SBBOT have been involved in recording and surveying wildlife in East Kent for over six decades. The evening will use our and ther data collected by others to look at the effects of urban development in East Kent. There are a few surprises!

Unpredictable birds

At this time of year we hope to find some of the rarer and less frequent types of bird. Most follow the rules but there are exceptions and we consider what these are and why it should be.

Feeding birds

We join the debate about the harm or good that is derived from feeding birds in the garden and will also discuss the types of feed and feeders and their advantages / disadvantages.

Winter visitors

As our summer migrants have almost all left, so the winter visitors are due to appear and we will talk about why this happens and what species we could hope to see and where they might be.

The Sandwich Tern

The symbol of SBBOT has a checkered past that has been well documented here at the Bay. The story of this significant species will be explored.

Winter ducks

The males are easier to identify than the females. Ducks arrive in Britain for the winter in huge numbers. Why is this and where can we see them?