It’s been a blogging good year and what better way to round it up than a look back at what had us talking in 2012.
January – we defied the convention of New Year diets and made January all about food on our blog. We paired up with Dozen Bakery and Pulse Cafe Bar, both in Norwich and both kind enough to dominate a product or two to raise some money for the RSPB.
February – a beautiful, nostalgic blog by Gena reminds us that nature is something that everyone can appreciate, whether you live in central London or rural Norfolk. As the firsts signs of spring were appearing her blog recalls what we have to look forward to, and how lucky we are to have it. As she rightly says, ‘bees are something that unite us all’ :P
Bumble bee by Chris Shields (rspb-images.com)March – was a mixed bag in which we saw blogs saying goodbye to winter through poetry, blogs welcoming the spring, National Climate Week, Earth Hour and a generally busyness as the clocks went forward.
April – the end of the month saw the closing date for our Nature Poetry Competition in partnership with the Rialto, which saw over 3800 poems entered from 18 countries. Wow!
May was a wet month but the rain didn’t stop us from having fun as we tried out the new Wild Zone for kids at RSPB Minsmere. However I think my favourite post from this soggy month came from Adam and his Eurovision song contest in the East. Check out the blog post to hear (literally) who got ‘douze pointe’ from Adam back in May (It wasn't Engelbert I'm afraid).
June – I loved Kate’s blog about the balancing act of making her tiny garden a haven for wildlife and a great place for her family, and her resulting respect for the wildlife-friendly farmers who are helping our threatened wildlife. Something for us all to think about when buying our cabbages and beans.
July – the highlight for July was Erica’s video blog about wombling through the Hintlesham Wood and an update on how the RSPB was campaigning to save this area of ancient woodland. We’re not all about bird watching you know.
August was, unsurprisingly, all about the summer holidays. We heard about the wonders of the natural world in North America, Costa Rica and Germany but also about the wonderful time you can enjoy outdoors right on your doorstep. Keep an eye out for similar suggestions on the blog this year.
September is a great month for watching wildlife as thousands of birds make their way from their summer homes to their winter haunts. One of the best blogs from September is about the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project in Essex. It’s an exciting habitat creation project (the largest of its kind in Europe!) that will benefit thousands of those migrating miracles I mentioned. The launch weekend was in September.
October - Ash trees – the silent victim is a hard-hitting blog from Erica about the threat of ash dieback, the fungal disease that has been spreading across the country in the last few months.
November - was a month for thinking about farming for wildlife and getting ourselves in gear. A blog from Simon Tonkin, RSPB Senior Farmland Conservation Officer, laid the importance of wildlife friendly farming on the line and we were galvanized to action.
December – I’m going to resist the urge to talk about Christmas and focus instead on something that’s even better; the RSPB’s conservation internships in Eastern England. Why are they so good? Well, because I started my career with the RSPB in one!
Robin by Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)
So there we are. A year of blogs in summary to keep you going during the Christmas holiday. We’d love to hear if you have a favourite blog post of the year, so please leave a comment below to let us know.
We can’t blog about all the great things the RSPB does for nature, we’d never get any other work done, but thank you for supporting what we do. We couldn’t do it without you!