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Editorial

by Gill Smith

The society had a very successful year, with good attendances at both indoor winter meetings and the summer field events. 2009 started with some very wintry weather and spring was late – a foretaste of the very hard 2009-10 winter to come at the end of the year. In this newsletter we have an article by Janet Denney on Winter Watch and some intriguing photos of tracks in the snow by Tessa Watson and Gill Smith, and an interesting note on climate by Adrian Smith. We also have the usual Recorder’s Reports and write-ups of the summer field outings (note the species lists are all available online). We are sorry to see Michael Thompson step down as the Mammal, Amphibian & Reptile Recorder at the end of this year – so this will be his last Report – although he continues to be a member. Michael has held this position for many years and has served the society splendidly, and we thank him for all his hard work. The innovation of the web recording form is a hit with members and indeed a few non-members, who between them entered almost 500 sightings which have been incorporated in this year’s Recorders’ Reports – and we look forward to more records from this source next year (see http://www.ryenats.org.uk/recordform.htm).