Witherby Memorial Lectures

Witherby Memorial Lectures are named in memory of Harry Forbes Witherby, a notable British ornithologist and author who was a founding member of BTO.

Learn more about Witherby’s contribution to BTO and how you can follow in his footsteps by becoming a Witherby Custodian.

1968	Sir Landsborough Thomson	The sub-species concept
1969	Dr D. Lack	The number of bird species on islands
1970	H.N. Southern	Tawny Owls
1971	Dr E.M. Nicholson	Geograms
1972	Sir Peter Scott	Species extinction in birds
1973	Mrs P. Hall	Speciation and specialisation
1974	D. Nethersole-Thompson	Greenshanks
1975	Dr J.C. Coulson	Ringing as an ecological tool
1976	Professor G.M. Dunnet	The ages of birds – adolescence and senility
1977	Dr D.W. Snow	The relationships between the African and European avifaunas
1978	Ill-health prevented the lecture being given.
1979	S. Cramp	Ornithology and bird conservation
1980	Dr D.A. Ratcliffe	The Peregrine
1981	Professor W.G. Hale	The biology of the Redshank
1982	Dr J. Kear	Some thoughts on eggs
1983	Dr C.M. Perrins	A study of the Great Tit
1984	Professor P.P.G. Bateson	Imprinting in young birds
1985	Dr I. Newton	Individual performance in Sparrowhawks
1986	Dr C.H. Fry	The Bee-eaters
1987	Dr F. Cooke	Natural selection in Snow Geese
1988	Professor P.R. Evans	Migration strategies of shorebirds
1989	Professor J.R. Krebs	Food hoarding in tits
1990	No lecture took place due to severe adverse weather conditions.
1991	Dr J.D. Goss-Custard	The importance of scale in the study of bird populations
1992	Dr G.R. Potts	Is there a future for farmland birds?
1993	Professor Dr P. Berthold	Some new developments in bird migration research
1994	Professor J.H. Lawton	All change? Numbers and range in the field and in the mind
1995	Dr A. Watson	Thinking, practice and people in bird population ecology
1996	Dr M. Owen	Wildlife and water: partnerships for effective action
1997	Dr M.P. Harris	Individuality in a densely colonial seabird: the Common Guillemot
1998	Dr J.P. Croxall	Albatrosses, Fisheries and Futures
1999	Professor D.T. Parkin	Birding and DNA
2000	Dr D.G.C. Harper	The public and private lives of Robins
2001	Professor Dr F. Bairlein	The study of bird migration: where to go?
2002	Professor N.B. Davies	Cuckoo versus host
2003	Professor D.M. Bryant	Swallows – life in an uncertain world
2004	Professor P. Monaghan	Bad beginnings and untimely ends: Life history trade-offs in birds
2005	Professor W.J. Sutherland	Science and Conservation
2006	Professor T. Piersma	What is it like to be a Knot? Towards a cognitive ecology of shorebirds
2007	Dr M. Marquiss	Case studies with predatory birds
2008	Professor P. Grant	Evolution of Darwin’s finches
2009	Dr . Spina	Birds and rings across the Mediterranean: the role of ringing for science and for conservation in Italy
2010	Professor Tim Birkhead	Sperm and Eggs: Promiscuity in birds
2011	Professor Rhys Green	Birth, death and bird conservation
2012	Professor Sarah Wanless	An Exaltation of Auks
2013	Professor Graham Martin	Through birds' eyes
2014	Professor Kevin Gaston	Birds in an urbanising world
2015	Professor Jenny Gill	Migration in space and time
2016	Professor Ben Sheldon	Coping with a variable world: plasticity and social learning in Great Tit
2017	Professor Stuart Bearhop	The ups and downs of an extreme migrant
2018	Professor Jane Reid	Ringing, Birding, Migration Ecology & Evolution
2019	Professor Bob Furness	What have the ringers ever done for us? How amateurs make British ornithology great
2020	Professor Caren Cooper	Flock together: Innovations migrating across citizen science
2021	Professor Claire Spottiswoode	Coevolution as an engine of biodiversity: insights from African birds
2022	Professor Peter Marra	Studying Birds in the Context of the Full Annual Cycle
2023	No lecture
2024	Dr Norman Ratcliffe	Ashmole’s halo and Hutchinson’s hypervolume