Roy Bedford was guest speaker at the January 2008 meeting. His fascinating talk on British Butterflies was illustrated with over 60 photographs, many of which he had taken himself.
The CD of illustrations was donated as a raffle prize and won by Mrs Diane Moran.
Roy is a member of Butterfly Conservation, in fact he was Chair of the local group for 10 years, and besides taking photos and giving talks he does weekly observations at the Walton Colliery Reserve.
There were pictures of just about every butterfly to be found in Britain, from the Cornish coast to the Isle of Skye, and Roy provided snippets of information about their habits and habitats as well as their present population status.
We were delighted to learn that conservation work on hedgerows is enabling butterflies such as Orange Tip to thrive, and that some quite rare species, including the Dark Green Fritillary, have been seen in Haw Park Wood.
Climate change is having a serious effect on butterfly populations and distribution, but in Yorkshire we are gaining more than we are losing with species such as Speckled Wood, Gatekeeper, Brimstone and Comma now able to survive this far north.
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