WDIXON PROFILE
Hello,
My name is Bill Dixon and I have been
running courses for the University
of Bristol off and on for
over 20 years. Firstly as evening lectures for the then extra-mural
department, followed by Saturday dayschools for the
Public Programs Office and more latterly for the Department of Earth Sciences.
Unfortunately funding is no longer available to sustain these courses. I am
attempting to fill the void left by running my own independent courses which
are very much based on my dayschool format of recent
years.
About myself – I graduated at the University of London with an Honours degree in Zoology
in the mid 1960’s. Subsequently I made a career in computer programming working
for firms such as British Aerospace and Wessex Water. In the meantime I kept up
my biological interests, getting involved with Bristol Museum as a volunteer helping
in cataloguing their moth collections which also led me to my introduction to
teaching at the University with a course on ‘Moth Identification’ sometime in the
1970’s. At about this time also I moved
to Portishead and soon became involved with the Avon
Wildlife Trust. Before long I became voluntary warden for Weston Moor and later
Weston Bigwood, both reserves owned by the trust and
both situated in the Gordano
Valley. At my Portishead home I ran a moth trap pretty much nightly over
about 25 years and am now processing the data with Dr Feest
of the University
of Bristol.
In 1991 the Burns day storm struck removing
about 10% of the canopy of Weston Bigwood. This
allowed a unique opportunity to study how an ancient
woodland (for Weston Bigwood is amongst the top
ancient woodlands in Britain)
recovers after such storm damage. This resulted in me completing a doctorate
under the University
of Bristol in the late 1990’s.
The combination of the above activities has
allowed me the diversity of knowledge to teach the various aspects of ecology,
habitat and identification to all levels of student.
In recent years I have become involved in
wildlife photography and I find this to be helpful for courses and
identification (and some are just nice to look at!).