Blogger: Gena Correale-Wardle, Community Fundraising

William Farrugia is one of nature’s heroes. Not only is he a fundraiser and advocate for the RSPB, standing up and speaking in front of dozens of his peers, but he’s also only 9 years old!

A few weeks ago on his walk to school he saw a dead blackbird in the road. Being William’s favourite bird, it made him very sad and spurred him into action to help the RSPB along with his classmates at Great Easton Primary School.

William obtained the kind permission of head teacher Miss Jackman to do a collection and assembly at his school. He made a collection box covered in pictures of some of our most endangered birds then told all his fellow pupils about his collection and asked them to bring in money for the RSPB. After a week of pocket money pennies being dropped into the box, he had collected £8.20 which he sent directly to the RSPB.

William wrote that he hoped the money will help the RSPB to find out why we do not have as many birds in our gardens as we used to. With a young head on old shoulders, it is great to see that William is a conservation advocate at such a young age and is already doing what he can to make sure we reverse the scary decline in some of our most loved garden bird species.

Whilst William’s dead blackbird sighting saddened him, it’s not all bad for blackbirds as they were revealed last week to be the most common playground visitor for the sixth year in a row in the RSPB’s Big Schools Birdwatch. The results of Big Garden Birdwatch showed a different picture with blackbirds down to number 4 in the rankings. This is thought to be a result of the mild winter, so blackbirds are likely to still be finding food in the fields across the countryside, and therefore were not visiting our gardens so much.

A big thank you from the RSPB for William’s fantastic fundraising for the RSPB and for being a hero for nature – keep up the good work!