Having no previous involvement with any local natural history organisations, my personal introduction to SOG came just before Christmas in 1976. I was fishing for flounders along the Orwell, just about where the Orwell Bridge crosses the river today, when a Great Northern Diver swam past. I was thrilled with my sighting and was wondering who I should tell when a young man, sporting a pair of binoculars, walked past wheeling his bicycle. It was Philip Murphy. I told him of my find, but was soon deflated when he said, “it’s still here then”. Philip told me about SOG, which I joined later that day and was soon recruited to the Editorial team whose main role was to check the systematic list prior to it going to print. The team then met in West Suffolk and we spent many an evening at Roger and Pam Walton’s house discussing records; rarely did we get home before midnight. Putting the bulletin together was a monumental task. Each issue was typed onto a stencil, run off using an old Gestetner printer, and then the printed foolscap pages stapled together. Eventually, it was realised that six issues a year was too much, so a revamped quarterly bulletin, now A4 and stapled in the middle, was introduced in the 1980s. So The Harrier was born, a change that coincided with the merging of the two branch Committees. SOG publications and books The Group has organised many species-specific bird surveys such as those for the Rook, Cuckoo, Ringed Plover and Tufted Duck, and administered two county raptor surveys. Our publications include: The Rook in Suffolk by Mike Jeans and Reg Snook (1976), Birds of Prey in Suffolk 1973-1978 by Alan Paine (1980) and Survey of breeding raptors and owls in Suffolk 1995-1998
Andrew Easton
The return of the Peregrine to Lowestoft 2
THE HARRIER – M arch 2013
by Mick Wright (2001). There have been two editions of Easy Birdwatching – a book designed to help those less mobile to find easy access to birdwatching sites in Suffolk. Nowadays, local survey work focuses on studies instigated by the BTO and the pages of The Harrier are used to promote work on national surveys locally. Mick Wright has been both SOG Project Officer and BTO Representative for over 25 years, a remarkable contribution to Suffolk ornithology. SOG helps to found LBO The Group was instrumental in the founding of Landguard Bird Observatory (LBO) in 1982, when it also became more active in the field of nature conservation. It protested loudly about the loss of wildlife habitats, particularly on the Orwell Estuary, and its biggest battle was its fight to save the Fagbury mudflats and marshes. The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company announced that they were seeking to expand the Port of Felixstowe westwards up the Orwell Estuary and as a Group we were to fight this tooth and nail. We assisted LBO in gathering vital information on the birds that frequented this part of the Estuary and sent a representative to the Enquiry in the House of Lords, which was myself (after enrolling as a Parliamentary Agent). We may have lost this battle, but Trimley Marshes Nature Reserve and Levington Lagoon are testimonies to our efforts to look after wildlife on the Orwell. Your Council will be looking at ways to celebrate our Ruby Jubilee with a series of events, so watch these pages and those on our website for further announcements. Steve Piotrowski, Honorary President
A pair of Peregrines is recorded as having bred regularly in the tower of Corton Church in the early 1800s, although exact dates are unknown. But each year a local falconer, John Dawson Downes from Gunton, took the young reared by them. So, with an effective productivity of zero, it was no great surprise that the species didn’t become established in the area at that time.
