Why I'm full of Christmas cheer

Here's a special guest Christmas post from RSPB Chief Executive, Mike Clarke...

This year has been a tough one, for many different reasons. But despite that, we've achieved a lot for nature during 2016...

...And it’s all thanks to people like you

Now is a good time to celebrate our successes with you, so I’ve picked a few highlights to share. Why not grab yourself a mince pie or two, a glass of your favourite tipple, make yourself comfortable and find out about just a few of the things we’re celebrating as 2016 comes to an end?

This year we recorded over 16,000 species on RSPB reserves – a jaw-dropping number of birds, mammals, plants, insects and more. And it’s your support that allows us to give them all a home.

Thanks to you we can improve and restore habitats so that all this precious wildlife can thrive. We are pleased to say that this year:

• The UK's first ever pair of breeding little gulls fledged two young at our Loch of Strathbeg nature reserve
• Smooth snakes - the UK's rarest snakes - bred at our Aylesbeare reserve for the first time after relocation
• Bitterns nested for the first time at Otmoor and Maltreath. The Otmoor pair were the first in Oxfordshire for more than 150 years
• Natterjack toads bred at two new ponds created here at The Lodge in Bedfordshire
• A corncrake was heard calling on Rathlin Island. It stayed for more than 50 days, showing the work being done here to give nature a home is working
• For the second year running, record numbers of nightjars and woodlarks bred on our heathland reserves.

Special habitats safeguarded

At the RSPB we're all about building bigger and better homes for nature. By 2030 we'd like to double the area of land we manage and see 20% of UK land and 10% of UK and UK Overseas Territories seas protected for nature. It’s a big ask.

But we're thrilled to protect more special places for nature as RSPB nature reserves – and also improving the ones we already have! Our reserves are great homes for nature and brilliant outdoor spaces for you and your family to enjoy.

• Black Devon Wetlands is the RSPB’s first nature reserve in Clackmannanshire, Scotland and is home to snipe, short-eared owls, teals and black-headed gulls
• Dunnet Head is an important seabird cliff at the most northerly point of mainland UK
• We are working together with the Land Trust and Buglife to manage Canvey Wick in Essex, an ex-industrial site, for its endangered invertebrates.
• And there are exciting times ahead at Sherwood Forest over the next few years as we're managing the legendary home of Robin Hood with other partners to improve the habitat for amazing wildlife, and protecting some of the most ancient trees in Europe.

As well as adding new sites, we don't stop improving the ones we already manage, like at Mersehead on the Dumfries and Galloway coast.

We had the opportunity to expand the reserve and your generous support meant we reached our appeal target in record time! The expanded reserve will soon be the perfect home for lots of wildlife including otters, natterjack toads and barnacle geese, who head to the reserve from the Arctic Circle.

Further afield

It’s been good news in some UK Overseas Territories this year. The Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific, Ascension Island, St Helena and Tristan Da Cunha in the South Atlantic are all taking steps to protect their marine life,  supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who have pledged £20 million of new funding to help achieve this.

The future for tropical species like green turtles, the brilliantly named resplendent angelfish, tuna, sharks and frigatebirds now looks far brighter.

Thank you

These are just a few of our achievements in 2016. My colleague Martin Harper has written a blog post on his own personal highlights, which go into many of these projects in more detail, it’s well worth a read.

As we head into a new year it’s great to know that day after day we’re improving wildlife’s fortunes around the world and making it a better place for the generations to come. There is still so much work to do, which we couldn’t manage without your support. Thank you.

All that’s left is for me to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

From Mike Clarke and all at the RSPB