Banbury Ornithological Society

The BOS has produced a monthly newsletter since January 1956. All members receive a copy of the newsletter each month. It contains the recent bird sightings and other articles of interest to members. Past newsletters are available to download for each year from the files below. The newsletters have been compiled into an annual report with an index at the beginning so you can quickly locate the newsletter for each month, except for the years 1956-1963 which are only a few pages long. Note that some December and January newsletters have pages omitted where the society's accounts have been removed. The older newsletters have been digitally scanned from the original reports, which in some cases means that the legibility is poor due to the way the originals were reproduced. In most cases it should be possible to perform textual searching within each document, allowing information on specific species to be located, for example.

There was no newsletter for September 1957
Newsletter #79 August 1962 is missing
There are some errors in the numbering of the newsletters, such as there being two issues numbered 605 and there being no #85
In the 1960s some months had supplementary newsletters with their own issue number
The February 2008 issue #632 says "January 2008" at the top of each page

The newsletters have also been compiled into compendiums for each decade. This makes it easier to download the entire collection of newsletters. See this page for the compendium files: Newsletter Compendiums.

Sean Woodcock, MP for Banbury visited the BOS reserve at Balscote Quarry recently, to see conservation in action. Steve Holliday, one of the site wardens said, “Balscote may be a small site (6ha) but, through positive management, it holds Red List birds such as Lapwing and Yellowhammer, 24 species of butterfly and much more." We looked at the vital role volunteers play in habitat management on site and, in light of BOS data on local bird declines, how we can develop a more joined-up approach to nature conservation locally. We finished by discussing how new proposals in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill can benefit, not harm, biodiversity.

Two Islands - Handa, Scotland & The Farnes, Northumberland - Graham Lenton

Handa a beautiful island off the north-west coast of the Highlands of Scotland boasts up to 150,000 seabirds. Its location seems to have its own weather pattern and the island is uninhabited apart from a seasonal warden and reserve volunteers. It is accessed by a ten-minute ferry from the hamlet of Tarbet and its white sandy shores and clear blue waters make it appear almost tropical. The seabird colonies of puffin, guillemot, razorbill, kittiwake and fulmar are easily viewed from the top of the island where sea cliffs of the Torridonian Sandstone reach over 300ft (100metres). Other notable birds that breed on the island are great and arctic skua, stonechat, wheatear, cuckoo, twite, oystercatcher, arctic tern, common, herring and great black-backed gulls, shag, eider, red grouse, ringed plover, snipe, rock dove, meadow and rock pipit and reed bunting. Most of the divers can be seen flying or on the sea around the island and black guillemots are often seen in the bay. Read more ...

Newsletters

Sean Woodcock MP visits Balscote Quarry

14 September 2026 - Indoor Meeting at 7.30pm