Biographies of KOS C&S Committee

Gordon Allison is currently working as part of the RSPB's North Kent Marshes Team, covering the reserves at Northward Hill, Shorne Marshes, Higham Bight, Rye Street and Elmley. He has been working for RSPB since 1991 at such far-flung locations as Lumbister on Shetland, Ynys Feurig on Anglesey and Blacktoft Sands. Prior to this, he worked for the National Trust on the Farne Islands and for the Lincolnshire Trust at Gibraltar Point.

Owen Sweeney joined the C&S Committee because of an interest in the wider issues of bird and wildlife conservation including land-use, planning and protection of both designated and undesignated sites. Owen organises the annual BTO Heronries census in the county , carries out WeBS counts on stretches of the Medway, takes part in the RSPB’s VFA (Volunteer and Farmers Alliance) Project and helps with surveys throughout the County whenever needed. He is also very active campaigning locally with the Medway Countryside Forum to protect the remaining natural environment against increasing development pressures.

Tim Hodge has been bird-watching in Kent since 1970, and has held various posts within the KOS for many years, including Editor of the Kent Bird Report from 1985-1997. He was co-author of the Kent Breeding Bird Atlas, published in the 1996 Kent Bird Report. He currently sits on the Executive Committee and the Editorial & Records and Conservation & Surveys sub-committees of the KOS, and is the Archivist for the society, dealing with some 670,000 computerised bird records. He serves on the Council of the British Trust for Ornithology, is a founder trustee of the Kent & Medway Biological Records Centre and sits on the Conservation Committee of the Kent Wildlife Trust. He also enjoys spoiling a good walk by birding in the Minnis Bay and Reculver areas.

Rob Clements has lived in Sittingbourne since 1994. He has carried out population studies on British raptors for many years, specialising in the rarer woodland species, Goshawk, Honey Buzzard and Hobby. He has published papers on Common Buzzard and Hobby in British Birds. In Kent his main interest is monitoring the growing raptor population in order to provide accurate data on their current status.

Martin Coath has been a bird watcher since 1952, when he wrote out his first life list of 36 species, including Chicken, since deleted from the list. His first local patch was Staines and the legendary Perry Oaks Sewage Farm, and he has lived in Essex and Northern Ireland, before settling in Kent in 1978. His local patch is Sevenoaks Wildfowl Reserve, but he has watched extensively in Kent, throughout the British Isles, in many other parts of the Western Palaearctic and, more recently, in the Neotropics. He has been recorder for South Kent since 1997, BTO rep. since 2001 and Chairman of the KOS since April 2003. If he were to write his autobiography, it would probably be about his life and works, so no one would buy it. It would be entitled ‘From Perry Oaks to Sevenoaks’

Robin Mace has come to birding later in life after many years concentrating on singing (finally giving up when his top notes deserted him). His home in Ashford is convenient for all the major birding sites in Kent and he also birds in the UK and Europe. Robin works as an IT consultant and provides technical support on the website, the records database and KBR production. He has recently been involved in the project to put all the past KBRs on to CD.