A talk about birds was the theme of the latest Beulah Thursday Club meeting

The November meeting of the Beulah Thursday Club was held recently at the reading room when Val Loveridge extended a warm welcome to everyone present. 

The guest speaker was Josephine Lewis who gave a fascinating talk on ‘Birds and Man’ highlighting the various ways that man has used birds of all kinds through the ages. 

She spoke at length about how some birds for example the Dodo have become extinct and how it can still easily happen today.

She then moved on to the subject of feathers and gave several examples of how they have been used – to make eiderdowns, pillows, mattresses, quill pens for writing, decoration such as the Victorian fashion for feather hats and some tribes for ceremonial dress.

In 1889 the RSPB was formed for the protection of birds and their environment with one of their aims being to save exotic birds from extinction and caged wild birds for their songs.

Many birds are referred to in everyday vocabulary for example featherweight, feather bedded and goose bumps.

Several uses are also made from birds and feathers today - fishing flies, arrows, darts, racing and fancy pigeons (the late Queen had a loft!) and game birds for shooting.

Birds are regularly used in people’s diets with the traditional Christmas goose and turkey and the popular meat of chicken together with their eggs.

Josephine ended her talk by making a plea for everyone to feed the wild birds this winter due to a shortage of berries being available for them this year.