Annual Linnean Society and British Ornithologists’ Club Lecture by Professor Robert Cheke on what’s new about sunbirds and their allies.

This is an in-person event at the Linnean Society. There will be a drinks reception after the lecture in our library, where a pair bar will be available.

Sunbirds are only found in the Old World, but they play similar ecological roles to the New World Hummingbirds. Together with accounts of the flowerpeckers, spiderhunters and sugarbirds, the sunbirds were described by Robert Cheke and the late Clive Mann in Sunbirds. A Guide to the Sunbirds, Flowerpeckers, Spiderhunters and Sugarbirds of the World, published by Christopher Helm in 2001 with illustrations by Richard Allen. A second edition of this book entitled Sunbirds of the World. Sunbirds, Flowerpeckers, Spiderhunters and Sugarbirds appeared in 2025 with updated information and additional illustrations including photographs of all of the 218 species. The talk will describe and discuss recent taxonomic changes in these groups and new research on their breeding behaviour, pollination roles and physiology.

Robert Cheke (https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.cheke)is Professor Emeritus of Tropical Zoology at the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich and a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London’s Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Before studying zoology at the Universities of St. Andrews and Leeds, Robert worked as a field assistant at the British Trust for Ornithology, then based at Tring. His research work has frequently taken him to sub-Saharan Africa, where he has been able to follow his passion for sunbirds, which began during undergraduate expeditions to Ghana and Kenya. His other ornithological interests include the biology and control of Red-billed Quelea birds Quelea quelea, West African birds (he wrote a BOU Checklist on the Birds of Togo with Frank Walsh), and bird-ringing in the UK. A specialist on the vectors of onchocerciasis (“River blindness”), Robert has also worked extensively on locusts and grasshoppers and mathematical modelling of a variety of biological systems.

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Concessions

Please buy the concession ticket if you are any of the below:

65 years of age, or over

Under 26 years of age

Currently in receipt of UK government benefit (including, but not limited to, Income Based Jobseeker's Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit, and Universal Credit).

Currently in full-time education.

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This is an in-person event at the Linnean Society of London on Piccadilly, London; it will not be recorded.

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Description supplied by the event organiser.