I too am a newby on here, and as Senior Administrator for the British Ornithologists’ Union I am always keen to spread my tentacles into as many areas of active ornithology as possible to let people now about the work of the BOU.

As way of introducing the BOU (to those not already familiar with us), we’ve been around a fair long time (150 years next year!), and one of our principal activities is to arrange conferences and meetings on current issues affecting birds. We publish the proceedings from many of these events (as free to view online supplements to our journal IBIS) and we have recently published one such proceedings many on here should find interesting, Birds and Recreational Disturbance. These can be viewed, free, online at our journal website at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ibi/149/s1.

For those interested in other recent proceedings, here is the current list of free to view supplements –

Wind, Fire & Water: Renewable Energy & Birds

Lowland Farmland Birds: the road to recovery (This title is also available in print, see http://www.bou.org.uk/store2.htm).

Climate Change and Coastal Birds

All the above available free to view via via http://www.bou.org.uk/pubibis.html

Forthcoming proceedings currently in preparation include –

Woodland Birds: Their Ecology and Management – due autumn 2007    

Birds as Predators and as Prey – due early 2008

More information about the BOU can be found on our website at www.bou.org.uk and our journal IBIS at www.ibis.ac.uk.

I’ll keep the group informed of all BOU events and publications as and when. Current events for 2007-08 are on our website.

Steve Dudley

Senior Administrator

British Ornithologists’ Union

www.bou.org.uk  |  www.ibis.ac.uk