Winchester College warmly invites you to the Cameron Bespolka Memorial Wildlife Talk, Keeping our Skies Alive.

Keeping our Skies Alive

by Edward Mayer

We are honoured and delighted to welcome this year’s guest speaker, Edward Mayer, who has devoted the last 23 years to working for Swifts. He set up The Swift Conservation having noticed that many of the Swifts in his local area were vanishing and he wanted to find out why.  The reasons proved to be loss of nest places as Swifts are completely dependent on holes in our buildings for nesting. 

Edward’s talk ‘Keeping our Skies Alive’ is about one of our most charismatic urban birds and he explains why they have declined in recent years. His richly illustrated talk will tell you lots of amazing facts about Swifts, what is happening to our environment and how you can solve many of the problems. 

Swift Conservation is a ’not for profit' organisation which is run by volunteers and their sole aim is to help Swifts to the best of their ability.  

This talk is free but please do book. Booking details will appear shortly.

Date: Wednesday 7th October 2026

Time: 7pm, doors open at 6.30
Venue: New Hall, Winchester College
Cost: Free

Come and talk to Hampshire Swifts ( www.hampshireswifts.co.uk), RSPB (www.rspb.org.uk) and Cameron Bespolka Trust at their stands before the talk.

Primary School Children Talk

Very kindly, Edward Mayer will be giving the same talk in the afternoon to around 450 primary school children. This Annual Lecture has proved a very popular fixture over the years and has featured a wide variety of wildlife-orientated speakers.

Primary school children enjoying a previous year's lecture

Talks from previous years