Witherby Memorial Lecture
The Witherby Memorial Lecture is an academic lectureship awarded by the British Trust for Ornithology annually since 1968.
Lectures
| Year | Lecturer | Subject |
| 1968 | Arthur Landsborough Thomson | The sub-species concept |
| 1969 | David Lack | The number of bird species on islands |
| 1970 | H. N. Southern | Tawny Owls |
| 1971 | E. M. Nicholson | Geograms |
| 1972 | Peter Scott | Species extinction in birds |
| 1973 | Beryl Patricia Hall | Speciation and specialisation |
| 1974 | Desmond Nethersole-Thompson | Greenshanks |
| 1975 | J. C. Coulson | Ringing as an ecological tool |
| 1976 | Geoge Dunnet | The ages of birds – adolescence and senility |
| 1977 | David Snow | The relationships between the African and European avifaunas |
| 1979 | Stanley Cramp | Ornithology and bird conservation |
| 1980 | Derek Ratcliffe | The Peregrine falcon |
| 1981 | W. G. Hale | The biology of the Redshank |
| 1982 | Janet Kear | Some thoughts on eggs |
| 1983 | Chris Perrins | A study of the Great tit |
| 1984 | Patrick Bateson | Imprinting in young birds |
| 1985 | Ian Newton | Individual performance in Sparrowhawks |
| 1986 | C. H. Fry | The Bee-eaters |
| 1987 | Fred Cooke | Natural selection in Snow Geese |
| 1988 | P. R. Evans | Migration strategies of shorebirds |
| 1989 | John Krebs, Baron Krebs | Food hoarding in tits |
| 1991 | J. D. Goss-Custard | The importance of scale in the study of bird populations |
| 1992 | Dick Potts | Is there a future for farmland birds? |
| 1993 | Peter Berthold | Some new developments in bird migration research |
| 1994 | John Lawton | All change? Numbers and range in the field and in the mind |
| 1995 | A. Watson | Thinking, practice and people in bird population ecology |
| 1996 | M. Owen | Wildlife and water: partnerships for effective action |
| 1997 | M. P. Harris | Individuality in a densely colonial seabird: the Common Guillemot |
| 1998 | J. P Croxall | Albatrosses, Fisheries and Futures |
| 1999 | D. T. Parkin | Birding and DNA |
| 2000 | David Harper | The public and private lives of Robins |
| 2001 | Franz Bairlein | The study of bird migration: where to go? |
| 2002 | Nicholas Barry Davies | Cuckoo versus host |
| 2003 | David Murray Bryant | Swallows – life in an uncertain world |
| 2004 | Pat Monaghan | Bad beginnings and untimely ends: Life history trade-offs in birds |
| 2005 | W. J. Sutherland | Science and Conservation |
| 2006 | Theunis Piersma | What is it like to be a Knot? Towards a cognitive ecology of shorebirds |
| 2007 | Mick Marquiss | Case studies with predatory birds |
| 2008 | Peter Grant | Evolution of Darwin's finches |
| 2009 | Fernando Spina | Birds and rings across the Mediterranean: the role of ringing for science and for conservation in Italy |
| 2010 | Tim Birkhead | Sperm and Eggs: Promiscuity in birds |
| 2011 | Rhys Green | Birth, death and bird conservation |
| 2012 | An Exaltation of Auks | |
| 2013 | Graham Martin | Through Birds' Eyes |
| 2014 | Kevin Gaston | Birds in an urbanising world |
| 2015 | Migration in space and time | |
| 2016 | Coping with a variable world: plasticity and social learning in Great tit | |
| 2017 | Stuart Bearhop | The ups and downs of an extreme migrant |
| 2018 | Jane Reid | Ringing, Birding, Migration Ecology & Evolution |