Can I offer my best wishes to you all for 2025. The eternal optimism that comes with the start of a new year has recently been tempered by the turmoil we see around the world. The environmental crises face us every day – the loss of birds and wildlife is felt most keenly by those of us that study and enjoy birds on a daily basis. But we also witness successes and positive outcomes from conservation efforts across Kent – new nature reserves establishing, innovative projects starting to deliver real results as well as farmers and landowners working to make the countryside richer in wildlife as part of their land management.
I’m writing this from Godmersham which, as more and more of you know, is a great place for birds – that doesn’t happen by accident, and I’m involved in putting material together for the Godmersham Park Heritage Centre (where a 19th century White-tailed Eagle resides). Godmersham is unusual in that we have bird records stretching back to 1832 thanks to Jane Austen’s nephew Charles Knight. None of it has yet found its way into the ornithological literature and I’m planning to write some articles for the KOS website during the year.
Communities across Kent are coming together to organise, campaign and work hard to protect local wildlife and wild places.
KOS is already active in many areas and I’m confident we are going to be able to do more and more to put the rich trove of bird records that you, our members, contribute to ever better use. In 2025 the work led by John Young and others to map farmland bird hotspots will be made available to planning authorities and communities alike to use so that we can highlight the most important areas outside the network of designated sites.
We’re gearing up to survey Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in 2025 and there will be an article appearing shortly giving more details of the survey. We will also support the BTO’s Heathland Bird survey which, for Kent, will be pretty much a survey of our now limited Nightjar population. Our members will contribute to the Breeding Bird Survey and the Wetland Bird Survey, both of which are fundamental to understanding long term bird trends and supporting conservation. If you’ve always thought you’d like to get involved – why not make that a New Years Resolution!
We want to engage directly with more of you and plans are developing for an AGM and mini conference in the autumn and we hope to set up some open days. After a successful trial run last year, we will be repeating The Big Kent Bird Migration Watch on Sunday 28 September 2025. Of course, our popular walks programme will continue throughout 2025.
Our website is at the heart of KOS and we will see further innovation as the online Birds of Kent develops and we feature regular posts throughout the year. If you have ideas for interesting articles, do get in touch. Our online articles will be in addition to our Newsletter which I know is so well received.
A few days ago I posted a retrospective look at 2024 – which turned out to be slightly premature as Glenn Honey delivered an early Christmas present in the form of Kent’s first Yellow Warbler on his New Hythe patch and Brian Short discovered a Scops Owl even closer to his home in Broadstairs – gathering to enjoy a rarity strengthens the fellowship of birding and I look forward to bumping into many of you at the next biggy.
So, I hope you enjoy your birding, survey work, ringing and exploring our fascinating county – lets hope 2025 is a bird filled New Year.
Andre Farrar - Chair