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No. 54 NEWSLETTER Spring 2003

WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH, BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

 

Obituary for Dr. Eric Barton of Herefordshire

It is with great sadness that I have to report the death of Eric Barton on 30 October 2002 at the age of 48. Eric, a consultant radiologist, died in Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham following a short illness.

Eric had been a member of Herefordshire Nature Trust for many years and had served on both the Executive Committee and the Council for Management. He had been a keen participant on many Butterfly Conservation winter work days over the last 10 years, and helped on many occasions in Haugh Wood, Bircher Common and other sites in Herefordshire. Eric become a member of Butterfly Conservation in the last few years and always took a keen interest both locally and nationally in the activities of the society. The sight of his wood laden Renault 5 struggling out of Haugh woods after another enjoyable days work will be greatly missed.

Our sympathies go to his wife Heather, and son and daughter Helena and Thomas.

Andy Nicholls
 

As you may know, a number of the regional branches of Butterfly Conservation have their own website and this includes the West Midlands branch.

In order to provide a little more visual continuity, Butterfly Conservation HQ has developed some new website templates and we are amongst the first of the branches to move to this new format. The templates should be available around the end of January 2003, so by the time you read this most of it should already be in place.

We also have a new URL:

www.westmidlandsbutterflyconservation.org.uk

A bit of a mouthful, but easily remembered, so please add this to your Favourites. From here you can access both the Butterfly site and the associated West Midlands Moth site.

The new sites have been built on the firm foundations provided by Steve Harper's and Neil Gregory's original work and my aim is to develop them further, with the help of the members, to provide a valuable source of regional information. New sections will include your earliest and latest sightings, your photographs, and online distribution atlas pages for some species. So, please take a look at the sites and let me know if there are any topics that you would like to see included - you can also point out my spelling mistakes!

I can be contacted at: njstone@hotmail.com and look forward to hearing from you.

Nigel Stone