Guest speakers

Immerse yourself in the thriving wildlife of Haweswater, through a journey of photography and film with Cain Scrimgeour, Co-Director of Wild Intrigue.

From Red Squirrels to Pied Flycatchers, discover the abundance of wildlife that this RSPB reserve supports in the Lake District National Park, with anecdotes and footage from Wild Intrigue’s Wildlife Photography Hides at Haweswater.

This new show from Ben Osborne is a retrospective journey through 40 years of professional wildlife and landscape photography. In 2007 he was the overall winner of “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” and in 2008 he was awarded a Lifetime Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. He has worked for many international film and photography organisations including the BBC and National Geographic. Among other work, he has sailed to Antarctica with Sir David Attenborough for the BBC series “Life in the Freezer” and shot still images for “Blue Planet” and “Planet Earth”. He leads photographic tours to the Arctic, New Zealand, Botswana and Scotland, works for a polar cruise company in Antarctica, and co-ordinates multi-media arts projects in the UK. His experiences add up to a fascinating and entertaining story which he illustrates with a selection of spectacular images.

Ben will be doing an introduction to bird photography course at Martin Mere on Friday 13 October. Find out more .

Exploring the origins of some well-known modern wader names and taking a look at some less well-known, ancient or local ones too.

Insects are essential for life as we know it – without them, our world will slowly grind to a halt. Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and a lifetime’s study, Dave Goulson reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades and the potentially catastrophic consequences. Eye-opening and inspiring, Silent Earth is a call to arms for profound change at every level and a passionate argument for us to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends.

Spain - Spoilt for choice; who knew that Spain hosted such an incredible array of wildlife, just a short hop from the UK. From wolves and bears in the northwest, to rare genet and lynx in the south, plus over 600 species of birds recorded in between.

Curlews are disappearing across Europe, especially on their breeding grounds. They face innumerable and often very different threats depending on the area - changing agricultural practices, wetland draining, high levels of predation, afforestation, climate change, and so much more. The good news is there is a lot happening to protect them. Find out more about Saving Curlews and reversing the decline of this much loved and iconic bird.

David found himself in Spain at the beginning of the pandemic. He thought that he would be in lockdown for a couple of weeks before resuming his travels. Months later he was still in Spain. It was the birds that saved him from losing his mind. Come and hear him speak about his solitary terrace vigils and his first walk of freedom after three months of virtually no exercise.

Discover more about the wildlife in your garden, and how you can attract a variety of different creatures through feeding, planting and homes.

Wildlife photography isn’t just about frame filling portraits. I often find myself drawn away from this approach to try and work more contextually, to show species interacting with each other, depict them in their habitat, usual or unusual behavioural shots – something that can tell use lot more about the lives and the habitats of our subjects and tell us a natural history story.

At WWT Martin Mere’s 2022 North West Bird Fair, I’ll be talking about my approach for photographing wildlife with context in mind. I’ll talk about my approach, from camera settings to composition as well as the natural history story in the photographs.

Image by Alan Hewitt