The third online NatHistFest is now open for viewing. Just click on this link to go to the list of exhibitors. To view an exhibit just click on it and it will open in a new window. The window with the list of exhibitors will stay open so you can easily switch between it and exhibits.
Exhibits from the first online NatHistFest, held in December 2020 and the second NatHistFest (2021) can still be viewed.
The online talk on Thursday 27th October will be given by the CNHS President, Harriet Allen. She will explore the ways in which data ‘from the air’ add to our knowledge of natural history.
ONLINE via Zoom. Members and those on the CNHS email list will be emailed login details nearer the time.
To be added the mailing list for events: email webmaster [at]
cnhs.org.uk To become a member: see details on this website.
The CNHS talk on Thursday 20th October will be 22 years of demonstration and research for nature-friendly farming.
This talk will be online via Zoom at 7:30 pm.
Georgie Bray, who manages Hope Farm for the RSPB, will talk about their experiences, gained over the past twenty years, of demonstrating that it’s possible to run a successful farming business, that produces food, makes a profit, and is valuable for wildlife as well. She will talk about carbon emission reductions, farm trials, and habitat management.
ONLINE via Zoom. Members and those on the CNHS email list will be emailed login details nearer the time.
To be added the mailing list for events: email webmaster [at]
cnhs.org.uk To become a member: see details on this website.
The next talk, which will be online on 13th October at 7:30 pm, is about the archives of Cambridge Natural History Society. Monica Frisch has helped look after the Society’s archives which include the first minute books from 1857. She will highlight some of the pioneering naturalists who have been involved in the Society, from its first president, Charles Cardale Babington to Oliver Rackham and David Attenborough, among others. The archives show how the Society has changed and adapted over the years.
ONLINE via Zoom. Members and those on the CNHS email list will be emailed login details nearer the time.
To be added the mailing list for events: email webmaster [at] cnhs.org.uk To become a member: see details on this website.
CNHS will have a stall at the Big Biology Day on Saturday 15th October. The event, at Hills Road Sixth Form College, on Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PE, is billed as a free fun-packed educational day of biology. The publicity says
The event runs from 10am to 4pm
The talk What midges can tell us about past environments THIS THURSDAY 6th October, will now be held in the Main Seminar Room in the David Attenborough Building on the New Museums Site, not the Department of Geography as previously announced.
The David Attenborough Building is in the New Museums Site CB2 3QZ. Enter the site through the archway from Pembroke Street and go up the flight of steps in front of you. Walk straight ahead and you will come to the entrance on your right.
The talk will start punctually at 6:45 p.m.
ALL WELCOME
The first talk in the Cambridge Natural History Society’s autumn programme will be held in person.
The speaker, Stefan Engels, is a palaeoecologist at Birkbeck College who studies the response of natural ecosystems to abrupt environmental change. In his talk he will explain how fossils of chironomids (non-biting midges) can be used to tell us more about past climate change and how they can contribute to a better understanding of Insect Armageddon.
The talk will be held in the large Lecture Theatre in the Department of Geography and will start promptly at 6:45 p.m. There is no charge for admission.
The Department of Geography is on the Downing Site, in the south-eastern corner, best accessed from the end of Downing Place.
The talks on 3rd November and 1st December will also be in person. The talks on other dates will be online via Zoom.
ALL WELCOME
On Thursday evening (July 28) we are visiting Wandlebury to see the flora of some of the new land that Cambridge Past, Present & Future have recently purchased.
Meet at 6:30 pm by the cycle stands in the car park. To get to Wandlebury from Cambridge, keep going along Hills Road, past Addenbrooke’s and along the Babraham Road. You then get one of the steeper hills to climb in the area. Once over the top descend a bit and the car park entrance is on the left. Car parking charges apply, but cycle parking is free. We will be joined by a former warden.
All welcome.
On Wednesday 8th June at 2 pm, as part of the Cambridge Nature Festival, the Cambridgeshire Geological Society has arranged a walk from Castle Hill to the Sedgwick Museum. There is no charge, and everyone is welcome, but numbers limited so you need to book by contacting them.
This guided walk (3 miles easy walking, taking about 1.5 – 2 hours) starts high up on Castle Hill. It takes, you down through the heart of old Cambridge and traditional riverside grazing ‘fenland’, past historic buildings to finish at the world-famous Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.
More information on this walk and the Fen Edge Trail series of (about 48) walks in Cambridgeshire is on the Fen Edge Trail website.
A new exhibition at the Museum of Zoology is using UK butterfly specimens from their collections to showcase the natural world and environmental change. It highlights the research that conservationists today are undertaking to reverse long-term declines.
For more information and to see details on every species – please take a look at Butterflies Through Time.
Associated with the exhibition is a series of online talks. Dates are in the Diary and see the Museum’s blog for more information.
The exhibition runs until 18th September and admission is free.
Museum opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4.30pm and Sunday from 12pm to 4:30pm (last entry time 4.15pm). Please check the website regularly as this is subject to change at short notice. Closed on Mondays.