When you walk through the gates into Birdfair, you feel an enormous sense of pride and purpose. This happens because the money your paid for your ticket is doing something very special. It’s not going into the pocket of a corporate events organiser, but helping save some of the rarest and most threatened birds in the world.
Every year, the RSPB and BirdLife International identify an overseas project that could benefit hugely from the funds raised by the fair. This sum is usually in the region of £200,000-300,000. And what a difference it makes!
Since the first Birdfair in 1989, all profits from ticket sales have gone straight to protecting some of the most precious habitats on Earth: from a Brazilian rainforest to a Madagascan wetland, from the Spanish Steppes to Important Bird Areas in Africa. This work has helped save some extraordinary birds: spoon-billed sandpipers, Bengal Floricans, Gurney’s pittas, Cebu Flowerpeckers, and many, many others.
I was lucky to visit one of the projects myself a few years ago, and to see the spectacular species that Birdfair ticket sales helped. The marvellous spatuletail is, simply, stunning. It’s a green-and-bronze-coloured hummingbird with an enormous tail that dwarfs its tiny body. At the tip of the male’s tail feathers are two ‘spatules’ – iridescent, peacock-blue displaying paddles. The marvellous spatuletail is found in only one place on Earth: the forest edges of the Huembo nature reserve, in a remote valley in northern Peru.
When you arrive at Huembo nature reserve, on a wall next to the gate, there is a plaque containing the logos of all the organisations who make up Birdfair. It’s a brilliant reminder of how one weekend in Rutland can make a positive impact on the other side of the world, saving a species that might otherwise have become extinct.
Your ticket for this year’s Birdfair will be ‘Saving Paradise in the Pacific’.
The island of Rapa and its nine islets, in the southernmost reaches of French Polynesia, are home to a stunning diversity of wildlife, including several bird species threatened with extinction. Here, invasive non-native species are destroying populations of native birds, including the Rapa fruit-dove, Newell’s shearwater, the Polynesian storm petrel and ten other seabirds. The money from your ticket will help our BirdLife Partner in Rapa remove these non-native species, and allow the island’s wildlife to flourish once again.
You’ll be able to find out more about Rapa, its wildlife, and the project to save it, at this year’s Birdfair.
In my next blog, I’ll give you my top five tips for things to see and do at the Birdfair.
Stuart Housden
The 2017 Birdfair is on 18–20 August, at the Rutland Water Nature Reserve in Oakham. For more information, and to book tickets, please visit the Birdfair website.