Julian Hughes has been involved with the Reserve for far longer than I have. From simply recording the birds on this, his local patch, Julian has moved into co-ordinating wildfowl counts, collating data , designing and running our Breeding Birds survey, and publishing all the reports.
This website is also managed by Julian and his partner Sandra; and that's not all! The repeated successes of Bardon Aggregates is the BTO challenge is largely due to Julian and his team of ornithologists who have demonstrated the ability of restored gravel pits to attract birds in huge numbers, including a few rarities. In turn, the data collected made a big difference when applying for further extraction that will, eventually, become an extended reserve at Paxton.
Julian is an RSPB man through and through, so, although he is leaving a senior post at The Lodge, he is staying with the Society to become the manager at their very busy Conwy Reserve in North Wales. We wish him all the best in his new post, and new home.
So now we have to find a whole team to replace him! Actually , Julian has done a great job in finding successors, so, hopefully, you won't notice a lot of changes. However, we are going to miss Julian's cool, thoughtful approach, and above all, his friendship.
