The next talk will be given by Hamish Symington. He points out that around a third of our food depends on pollinating insects, but they are in decline, while the global population is estimated to hit 10 billion by 2050. In his talk he explores how food relies on insects, and how research at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge aims to make flowers more efficient at being pollinated.

The talk is ONLINE via Zoom from 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

Members will be emailed login details nearer the time. To join the Society click here, or contact webmaster [at] cnhs.org.uk to be added to the email list for notification of events. Please make sure that your spam filter (yahoo email addresses in particular) does not reject the messages.

The Cambridge Group of the Wildlife Trust BCN announce that they will be starting a series of online talks later this month. These will be hosted over Zoom and cost £2.50 for all Wildlife Trust members and £4.00 for non-members, with all profits going to the Wildlife Trust. The first talk will be on Monday 23rd November, starting at 7.00pm and is titled “Online talk: The NatHistCam Project, with Mark Hill“.

You will need to book this in advance via the Wildlife Trust BCN events page.   Mark will explore some of the new findings of the NatHistCam Project around Cambridge. NatHistCam was set up in 2016 to study the Natural History of Cambridge. From 2016 to 2019 the project recorded and collated data on a wide variety of organisms, including mosses, vascular plants, birds, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and mammals. It also surveyed the weeds of Cambridge gardens and the plants growing in streets and on walls. We are now writing up the results and this talk will give a flavour of what we found!

Mark Hill came to Cambridge in 1946 and can remember when the New Bit of Coe Fen was covered in Nissen huts to house the families of Polish airmen. He is a botanist and ecologist with a particular interest in mosses. He was president of the Cambridge Natural History Society from 2014 to 2016 and during that time proposed that we should study the natural history of the city.

The next online talk is on 22nd October when Roy Atkins, a guide with Speyside Wildlife based in the Cairngorms National Park, will give a talk on “Highland Wildlife” during which he will talk about and show pictures of the special birds, mammals and other wildlife of the highlands of Scotland.