Mike Read – New Beginnings: From Gravel To Grebes

On Friday 7th February, the Club hosted a presentation by Mike Read who is a freelance professional photographer. Mike is a renowned freelance wildlife and landscape photographer based near the New Forest National Park in southern England. With over 40 years of experience, he specializes in capturing the natural beauty of birds, flowers, mammals, and diverse landscapes. Residing on the western edge of the New Forest, Mike has developed an extensive collection of images showcasing the area’s unique wildlife and scenery. His work has been featured in various publications.

The subject of Mike’s talk wasthe history and currrent wildlife of the Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve, just to the North of Ringwood. Initially a gravel extraction site, over the years it has been transformed into an oasis for a wide variety of wildlife.

Mike’s webpage describes it thus:

Just to the north of Ringwood lies a gravel rich ‘shelf’ to the east side of the valley of the Hampshire Avon.  Over a number of years it was amazing to see how the habitat changed as work progressed and even more amazing was the quantity of new wildlife arrivals.  Being very close to the Avon Valley migration flyway, birds heading north in the spring or south in autumn often spilled over into the new gravel and pits area.

After record keeping and campaigning by just one individual, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust took an interest and then established the Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve and Education Centre.

Now an even broader range of wildlife can be seen as wildlife habitats mature.  These include birds, bugs and butterflies, mammals and mushrooms.

Numerous hides overlook stretches of water where birds such as gulls and terns of many species, a wide variety of ducks and herons have all been seen.  The latter group has included close encounters with bitterns and frequent views of Walter, Europe’s oldest known great egret when he/she was last seen. Of course, grebes have also been seen here too!

Mike’s presentation was delivered with numerous beautiful images, interesting facts and much humor. The members attending now know how to sex a Robin!

Here are a couple of images from the presentation, all published on Mike’s Website:

A very interesting presentation by a speaker who clearly knows his stuff. Thank you Mike.