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mark avery

It's very nearly Christmas. 

And all through the year you have been giving us Christmas presents!

  • RSPB membership stands at a record 1,076,112
  • The bird of prey campaign raised a record-breaking 210,567 signatures in favour of legal protection for birds of prey.
  • Big Garden Bird Watch involved nearly 530,000 people who recorded 73 species in 280,000 gardens across the UK. Extraordinarily cold weather led to more sightings of countryside birds like fieldfares, redwings, bullfinches and yellowhammers being seen in gardens searching for food as a result of being unable to find enough in their usual haunts. BGBW 2011 is not far away and it's very cold again (29/30 Jan).  What will you see this year?
  • Make Your Nature Count: participants in our summer wildlife survey doubled in 2010 with over 90,000 people counting the birds and mammals in almost 70,000 gardens. Analysis has shown that hedgehogs are seen in good numbers in both rural and urban areas, whereas most mammals are much more common in rural gardens.
  • Letter to the Future set a new record of over 330,000 signatures - and we helped save funding for the English Higher Level wildlife-friendly farming scheme from the axe!
  • Wildlife Explorers passed 200,000 members
  • RSPB volunteers number over 16,000 and do all sorts of work that otherwise might not get done, would take longer or would cost a fortune!


Thank you everyone for your continued support, we really couldn’t do it without you. We'll be counting on you in 2011 too!

A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.

  • Well nice of you to put it like that Mark but feel we get so much from RSPB from lots of places but particularly from Dave Sexton,yourself and all at Arne,in general wherever we go the RSPB staff do more than is expected.So many been so helpful it is almost unbelievable,Damon Bridge gave us such a lot of help.Good that the year ending on a good note and we will support most things in 2011 for sure but bound to be a small number of things we do not agree with.The standout thing in 2010 was that as i understand it you and i agree intensive farming(whatever that means)and improving numbers of farmland birds could go together if the right practices are followed.Hope somehow the RSPB make getting that information across to the farming community a priority although of course a pity that you do not get much help on that one.Think i will make that my wish for 2011 and say good luck with it.    

  • From your own staff 1 in 3 adults feed birds in Britain making around 11 million potential new members. Still a long way to go!! Mind you, I do know folk who say that by feeding the birds is their way of not needing to join as more money goes directly to the birds. May be you need a 'cheap' £5 membership for bird feeders only naming all the reserves they would get in free any way. This way you would have the extra figures to take to government and you could concentrate your full membership recruitment on these 'cheap' members.

    Looking forward to the increase in membership in 2011!

  • A great set of results and a great effort all round. Well done to all the hard working RSPB staff and all its volunteers. A special thanks to you Mark for running this really excellent blog which is so informative and up to date.

    Happy Christmas to all, and get ready for the many challenges in 2011, whatever they maybe.

    Redkite

    redkite