John came to South Wales in 1991, following work re-location from London. He joined the local bird watching society, the Glamorgan Bird Club and quickly became an integral part of it.
Since those early days of his involvement and to the present day, John has undertaken the mammoth task of producing the annual East Glamorgan Bird Report, almost single-handedly. The 2021 edition was his 30th. John is responsible for all aspects of the report, editing the content, allocating sections to a team of writers and proof readers, setting out the script and liaising with the printer to produce a report that can run up to 100 pages. All this work is time constrained, with publication expected of the Club within twelve months of the record submissions and dependant upon John spending many hours on it over a period of a few months. The report is a now a high quality publication, that has improved dramatically under his stewardship. John’s excellent IT skills have been particularly valuable in this task. He has taken the report from being a basic leaflet style publication to a full colour book.
As well as producing the annual report, John has been recognised as the principal bird-walk leader for the Glamorgan Bird Club with the main responsibility for organising the varied annual programme of field trips. This entails researching sites, sometimes visiting them in advance, creating the annual field trip programme card and circulating all of the relevant information to members in advance of each trip to ensure their safety and enjoyment.
John’s tremendous ornithological knowledge and his infectious passion for bird watching has been passed on to many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the South Wales area over the years by way of these highly informative bird watching excursions. He has also organised residential weekend visits out of area, in particular to the Portland Bird Observatory in Dorset.
He is highly personable and diplomatic and will take great pains to help the most inexperienced of bird watchers during these walks, often going out of his way to ensure that everyone on a walk has had the opportunity to study a specific/selected/chosen bird by sharing his telescope and providing accessible information on each bird being observed. Likewise, he is also able to engage, confidently and on an equal footing, with the topmost birdwatchers in Wales to discuss sightings and conservation matters.
In addition, John has regularly volunteered on behalf of the Club with projects such as guiding local Guide and Scout groups around the Kenfig National Nature Reserve, manning the Glamorgan Bird Club stand at fetes, representing the club at the celebration of World Environment Day in the Senedd etc, etc. His enthusiasm and knowledge is no doubt helping to build the next generation of bird watchers and citizen scientists. He has also organised bird-box making sessions with groups of young people and a specific project that he undertook was to erect several bird boxes in the grounds of Ty Hafan, the local children’s hospice.
John is an active Club committee member and Trustee and with his previous experience of serving for a considerable period as Chairperson is always ready to support the current chair by sharing his knowledge of the birding sector in Wales and beyond. Notably John has served as the secretary of the local Rare Birds panel, liaising closely with the County Bird Recorders of East and West Glamorgan on behalf of the Club. He is well respected by all the officials and committee members of the Bird Club and is an example for all to follow with his high standards of bird recording and his attention to detail on the bird walks.
John’s superlative IT skills, referenced earlier, are used to create and maintain the Club’s web site, and he has embraced the use of social media to promote bird watching and other bird related topics to a much wider audience.