A local Favourite
The Amersham Birdwatching Club
Our aim is to share and foster an interest in and enjoyment of birds and their environment.
We will be glad to see you at any of our monthly meetings.
Enquiries: Text 07958 792 488
NEXT MEETING:
Friday 15th February at 7:45 in The Barn Hall , Chiltern Avenue, Amersham , HP6 5AH
The Wildlife of Southern Amazonia Speaker Graeme Wallace
Sunday 17th February Field trip to Little Marlow Gravel Pits Leader Jeremy Tanner
Future Friday evening Meetings in 2019
January The Birdwatchers Time Machine Dan Field
February Wildlife of Southern Amazonia Graeme Wallace
March The Shetland Isles Bill Coster
April Lee Valley Paul Roper
May Undiscovered Norfolk Chris Ward
September Saving Kenyan coastal forests
for eastern bird migrants Ann Scott
The Birdwatchers Time Machine was the enigmatic title given by Dr Field for his talk on the paleontological evidence for the 'history' of birds. Drawing widely on his own work and research we were treated to a wonderful romp through the last 100M years ,give or take a few ,noting the presence or absence of ferns , dinosoaurs and the like prior to and post the cataclysmic collision with the asteroid 66M years ago in the Yucatan peninsula widely recognised as the most recent event dealing a severe blow to all life forms.This was the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction known to those in the trade as the "K-Pg" Birds emerged after this event but what was there before .. who were the ancestors?
Here are some links sent by Dr Field to help you further in your search for the truth. Yes it's definitely out there!
Articles by Dan Field
"How birds survived the dinosaur killing asteroid" an article in The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/how-birds-survived-the-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-97021
"Feathered fruit-eater frozen in fossil form" by Dan Field and Allison Hsiang https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2018/06/25/feathered-fruit-eater-frozen-in-fossil-form/
A couple of articles in National Geographic also touch on the subject with video supplied by Dan
"These are the Dinosaurs that didn't die" An article in National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/05/dinosaurs-survivors-birds-fossils/
"The unprecedented Ichthyornis fossil from Kansas offers fresh perspective on bird evolution." a short article in National Geographic which has rotating 3-D fossil bird skull photo
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/fossil-bird-skull-3d-dinosaurs-evolution-paleontology-science/
For information about Dan's work and papers published go to :
For information on some local sightings look on General News page
We look forward to welcoming you to any of our meetings. We will continue to do our best to keep you updated on our programme & activities together with any updates to our web site.
A few of our members like taking photos. If you find this of interest please contact us for further details or just to chat.
Field Trips are a regular feature of our activities many being local but a couple of times a year we go further afield for a few days residential to places such as Titchwell in North Norfolk, Minsmere in Suffolk or North Kent Marshes. This year we are going back to Portland Bill.
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This site was last updated on 20/1/19
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