COUNT AIMS TO TRACK STATUS OF BRITAIN'S DWINDLING GREY PARTRIDGE POPULATION

                                                            

Grey partridge - seeking ways to stem its decline

FARMERS, landowners and gamekeepers are being urged to get involved in a project aimed a helping to conserve grey partridges.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has run its count of the species since 1933 to collect information on abundance and breeding success.

 Over the years, numbers have been affected by wet summers, low chick survival and problems with low winter survival rates.

This is something the bird is adapted to, but their chick survival rates can be helped by having chick-food producing habitat and management in place to minimise losses.

GWCT scientist Neville Kingdon, who collates the results each year, says every bird which gets recorded is vital, as our autumn count gets under way.

“To get a national recovery, we need a national response.

“It’s the time of the year when crops have been  cut and we can see birds, so it’s the perfect time to go out and take part.

“We’re not just interested in big numbers, every single sighting  matters -counting t can often be enjoyed as an activity with the family.”

Factsheets on habitat creation, management and predation control are available for download from the GWCT’s  web pages at  https://www.gwct.org.uk/advisory/guides/. 

Measures taken to improve conditions for grey partridges could also help a range of other species of farmland bird.

Head of education at GWCT, Mike Swan, who recently took part in a count in Cornwall, said: “It was a joy to see a well-grown covey with six young; probably the first covey to be produced in the wild in Cornwall for over a decade. 

“There is a long way to go before we can say that there is a self-sustaining population back in Cornwall, but this was a very encouraging result for the first year.”

RSPB CHAIRMAN: "SPEAKING OUT BRINGS POWER TO NATURE CONSERVATION"

 IN the run-up to the RSPB’s 2017 AGM on October 7, we look back at what the society’s chairman, Prof Steve Ormerod, had to say at the corresponding event last year. Reproduced below, his wide-ranging speech covered such as subjects as the decline of Britain’s seabirds, tracking the migration of turtle doves, climate change, the importance of campaigning, the reintroduction of cranes to Somerset and the importance of retaining the EU’s Nature Directives.

One of the main ways we give nature a home is by creating ideal conditions for important species across our nature reserves network.

RSPB reserves have it all - from rugged coastlines to sweeping heathlands, from ancient woodland to whispering reedbeds.

These places support a jaw-dropping range of species, many of them rare and threatened.

Across 214 sites, you can find everything from sundews and shrews to seahorses and seagrasses.

 Altogether, RSPB reserves hold a total of more than 16,000 different species.

You would expect our reserves to be great for birds, and they are - we have recorded 421 species on them.

But our sites are “arks” for all wildlife. They have 93 per cent of the UK’s land mammal species, 75 per cent of its wildflowers, and 97 per cent of the dragonflies and damselflies.

Some 800 of the species on RSPB reserves are classified as rare, but others are numerous enough to be considered nationally or globally important.

Through careful habitat management, we are helping rare and threatened species to recover.

At Geltsdale in Cumbria, we recorded 59 lekking black grouse the largest number ever, up from 55 in 2014.

This success follows 10 years of a new cattle grazing regime, designed to create just the right variety of vegetation for these stunning birds.

Continuing one of the RSPB’s major restoration successes, this year we recorded more booming bitterns than ever before - 157 across 72 RSPB Reserves.

As well as growth in numbers, their range is expanding to new areas, including Ouse Fen and Needingworth Quarry in Eastern England. Habitat restoration for target species really does work.

The avocet also had a record-breaking year. A total of 172 pairs were counted at Cliffe Pools in Kent, the same area where you helped us fight off the proposal for an airport development a few years back.

Speaking out brings power to nature conservation.

Record numbers of woodlarks are breeding on West Sedgemoor in Somerset. And on Coquet Island, we now have 111 pairs of roseate terns - the highest for 40 years and 90 per cent of the UK total.

Our Great Crane Project on the Somerset Levels and Moors gives us some of the year’s most exciting news. Through this pioneering reintroduction project in partnership with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, and with funding from Viridor Credits, we’ve brought over crane eggs from Germany over a five-year period.

These birds have been raised by hand, with their human ‘parents’ dressed in long grey smocks to remove the risk of the young cranes imprinting on people. This year, for the first time, some of the cranes reintroduced into the wild successfully reared their own chicks. Nine pairs of cranes made breeding attempts, and four chicks fledged.

Not to be outdone by birds, invertebrate reintroduction projects have had a successful year, too.

Ladybird spiders were on the brink of extinction in the 1990s but are slowly regaining ground following our reintroduction programme at RSPB Arne in Dorset. And at Surrey’s Farnham Heath, we’ve been reintroducing field crickets, which are starting to flourish.

These successes are the result of years, and often decades, of dedicated, conservation work made possible by public support.

This year the Big School’s Birdwatch turned 15. Our scheme to get pupils counting the species that visit their school has become the UK’s biggest school wildlife survey, giving over a million children and teachers the opportunity to connect with nature. More than 70 species were recorded this year, with blackbirds the most common.

As well as connecting people with nature, initiatives like this and our Big Garden Birdwatch can reveal population trends through time.

Research guides everything we do, and RSPB scientists are among the best in the

conservation world.

Species monitoring reveals the health of populations, and, when a species is found to be struggling, we investigate the causes, and then pioneer solutions to help recovery.

This year saw publication of the latest issue of Birds of Conservation Concern.

It highlighted the extent to which our seabirds are in serious trouble, with puffins, shags and kittiwakes all placed on the red list of high conservation concern.

Seabird conservation has always been a big priority for the RSPB, but we must do more.

As an example, this year we have been running a new seabird tracking project to help identify the risks to our most vulnerable species.

We have fitted GPS tags to seabirds including guillemots and razorbills to find out where they feed.

This technology was instrumental in helping us fight the proposed Hornsea 2 wind farm, scheduled to be built 56 miles east of Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs Special Protection Areas, and the Flamborough and Filey Coast potential SPA.

This proposed site is within the foraging ranges of breeding gannets, guillemots, razorbills and puffins - clearly a serious concern.

The RSPB is not against renewable energy, including wind turbines, so long as they are located in places that don’t impact on important wildlife.

Although disappointed that the Hornsea 2 windfarm has now been given the planning go-ahead, our intervention should provide assurance that the development is less damaging.

We are, of course, concerned that further proposed phases of this project will continue to threaten Yorkshire’s seabirds.

Staying with the marine environment, January 2016 brought the exciting news that, after much campaigning, a vast area of at least 220,000 square kilometres off the UK Overseas Territory of Ascension Island is to become a marine reserve by 2019.

Ascension lies in the equatorial waters of the tropical Atlantic, roughly halfway between Africa and Brazil. It is home to the second largest nesting site of green turtles in the Atlantic, as well as the resplendent angelfish and marmalade razor fish.

Around the island are important populations of tuna, bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales and marlins. Only three per cent of the world’s seas have some form of legal protection, so this success is a major step forward.

Back on land, our Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire turned 15 this year.

When we first broke ground there in 2001, there were two yellowhammers. But last winter, thanks to our long-term efforts, there were 723.

In 2001, there were just 250 birds of 22 species at Hope Farm, but it now has 2,900 birds of 43 species. This demonstration shows that simple but effective measures, such as wild flower margins and winter seed crops, can restore nature’s home while turning over a profit equivalent to that of commercial farms.

Of all farmland birds, turtle doves are in the gravest danger. Numbers have dropped by 96 per cent in recent decades, and, as with our threatened seabirds, we have been tracking them to understand their migration routes.

I told you last year about how our tagged turtle dove, Titan, had crossed the Sahara and back, on one night alone travelling an incredible 700km. Sadly, Titan failed to return this spring. But the kind of detailed information he provided is invaluable in finding ways to save these birds.

You may have seen from our website that more turtle doves are now being tracked.

We are working with partners all along the migration route, from the UK to West Africa, and doing everything we can to keep the turtle dove as a breeding bird in the UK.

Another issue that requires enormous international co-operation is climate change.

In November, 2015, we published The Nature of Climate Change, a report highlighting the ways in which species are being affected.

One example from the Netherlands shows how food webs can be seriously disrupted. Oak leaves and caterpillars have been peaking around 2 weeks early, and chicks of great, blue and coal tits and pied flycatchers also hatched much earlier.

 In contrast, sparrowhawk chicks, which depend on these small birds for their survival, are not hatching any earlier with potentially disastrous consequences.

We took our report to the UN Climate Change conference in Paris in 2015 to coincide with the drafting of the new global climate agreement.

We are pleased that after all our campaigning, the agreement has a large section on the need for reducing carbon emissions and on the role of conservation.

Engaging with decision-makers is vital in the fight to save nature. We are taken seriously when we step up to the discussion table because of our expertise and knowledge, and because of the strength you bring to us.

Having more than a million members - more than all of all the political parties combined - means that we are recognised as a force for nature. But we still have to find innovative ways to motivate more people to get involved in campaigning at our side.

One of those innovations is our new MP Species Champions scheme. Originally launched in Scotland and now rolled out across the rest of the UK , this project carefully matches MPs to species found in their own constituencies and encourages them to become stewards for their welfare.

To get the MPs personally connected with their birds, plants, bugs, bees or fish, we held a special event in Westminster where we presented them with tailored factsheets.

We have also taken a number of the MPs along to RSPB sites to personally see their ‘species constituents’.

Our hope is that the Species Champions will become more passionate about nature conservation, and will go on to support us in other challenges, such as habitat loss.

Nature needs friends in high places. Indeed, it needs friends in all places, from our back gardens and local patches, to the farmed countryside, to the halls of power around the world.

And it was in those halls of power that your voices were heard to remarkable effect this year.

Recently, the legal framework that protects our wildlife - the bedrock of all our conservation activities -came under serious threat.

Collectively known as the Nature Directives, these laws had come to be regarded as red tape in the EU, with some people even suggesting they were a barrier to economic growth rather than the fundamental source of human prosperity and wellbeing.

It was your strength in numbers that helped us in the fight to save the Directives. We encouraged people to write to their MPs, to tell their friends, and to send the message far and wide through Twitter and Facebook.

Well over half a million people told European leaders not to weaken the Directives - three times more than in any previous EU consultation.

One of our major challenges now is to ensure that nature is protected with equal strength no matter what the Brexit decision may bring.

Ladies and Gentlemen, nature isn’t just a ‘nice to have’. It’s a ‘need to have’.

The conservation movement of which the RSPB is a key part is unified by this philosophy. We “fight” - as our strapline says - to give nature a home, but the reverse is also true.

Nature gives us our home.

A world rich in nature is a healthy, vibrant, sustainable place for all of us.

It is in our interest to put the protection of nature at the heart of the world’s priorities.

You are the strength that will enable the RSPB and its partners to do just that - and I thank each and every one of you for your support.

CHARITY'S ALERT OVER LIVE BUTTERFLIES RELEASED AS WEDDING CONFETTI

A WARNING has been sounded on the new fad for releasing captive-bred butterflies, imported from overseas, at weddings, funerals and other celebrations.

Says Dorset-based Butterfly Conservation: “Such releases may adversely affect initiatives to record native species because it is unlikely to be clear to recorders   whether sightings are truly wild or not.

“This has the potential to divert limited conservation resources as it complicates accurate mapping and conservation work.”

The charity  also has concerns about the potential threat to genetic integrity.

It continues: “Because released specimens have been bred in captivity, each generation of butterfly is more genetically suited to breeding in captivity than in the wild. 

“If released specimens breed with wild individuals, they have the potential to affect the genetic makeup of the species in the wild. 

“This may now only be a small risk, particularly in northern Europe where the species released do not survive the winter but, with global warming, it  is likely to increase.

The potential for spread of disease is another worry, with intensively-reared butterflies possibly passing on infection to wild species.

Butterfly Conservation adds: “We feel that using butterflies as confetti may encourage a dangerous attitude to boxing and transportation of wild creatures.”

ROSEATE TERNS AND OTHER MARINE SPECIES SET TO BENEFIT FROM NATURAL ENGLAND'S 'BLUEBELT' INITIATIVE FOR NORTHUMBERLAND COAST

SOME 20,000 seabirds, including  an estimated 160 rare roseate terns, should be safer from disturbance following this month’s designation of a 12-mile stretch of the Northumberland coast as a Marine Special Protection Area.

Covering  an area equivalent to  more than 120,000 football pitches, this part of the North Sea.is the most important site in the UK for Arctic, common and roseate terns, the second most important site for sandwich tern and the third most important site for Atlantic puffin.

According to Natural England, this designation “will help ensure any disturbance to the birds’ essential open water feeding areas is minimised, so the birds have a safe space to feed in”

It builds on the protection already afforded to important breeding sites via the network of SPAs at Coquet Island, Farne Islands and Lindisfarne 

Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey enthused: “We already have one of the strongest track records in the world when it comes to looking after our precious marine environment, and this decision will strengthen our bluebelt of protected areas while helping seabirds across the country thrive."

Agreed Natural England’s chairman, Andrew Sells: “This is a momentous day for a huge number of our most charismatic seabirds, many of which have suffered population declines over recent decades.

Meanwhile, Chris Corrigan, of the  RSPB, commented: “This is fantastic, and we hope to see more designations in the very near future.

“As the UK moves closer to leaving the EU, we urge the Government to continue to recognise the significance of protecting such sites.”

The move was opposed by port user groups who are now seeking clarification on how, if at all, their activities might be affected. Wind farm operator EDF has also sounded a note of caution.

Natural England has also announced extensions to Hamford Water SPA in Essex and Morecambe Bay and Duddon Estuary SPA in Cumbria.

The Northumberland Marine SPA ranks:

• Top for Arctic tern (9,564 individuals), common tern (2,572) and roseate tern (160)
• Second  for Sandwich tern (4,324 individuals)
• Third  for Atlantic puffin (108,484 individuals)
• Fourth for common guillemot (65,751 individuals)
• Eleventh  for little tern (90 individuals)

* Photo of roseate terns by Alcides Morales via Wikipedia

NOVELTY INFLATABLE FLAMINGOS HAVE BEEN 'FLYING' OFF THE SHELVES AT PRIMARK

                                                  

Retailing at £9, this inflatable  flamingo novelty pool has been a big hit  during summer with shoppers at branches of the Primark chain. Perhaps the RSPB and  wildlife trusts should consider stocking it in the shops at their visitor centres.

STEEP RISE IN VALUE OF RSPB'S RESERVES

                                            

There has been an uplift in the value of the RSPB’s nature reserves. 

At the last count, there were 214 sites - UK-wide - in the charity's portfolio.

Many of the charity’s land assets have appreciated in worth since they were bought

(in some cases many years ago).

Following a professional revaluation exercise, the total nature reserve value now shown in the balance sheet is £194-million compared with £139-million previously.

* Pictured: RSPB's flagship reserve at Minsmere in Suffolk (Photo: Bogbumper via Wikipedia).

LABOUR LEADER'S CAIRNGORMS QUEST TO GLIMPSE 'BEAUTIFUL' GOLDEN EAGLE

                                                                 

Golden eagle with prey (photo: Chuck Abbe via Wikipedia)

 

IS Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a secret birdwatcher?

During his late summer tour of Scotland, he interrupted his schedule to spend a whole day in the Cairngorms in a quest to glimpse a golden eagle.

”It's a beautiful bird, but unfortunately, I didn't see one,” he   he told an audience of supporters at a private event where he was quizzed by, co-founder of eco-campaigning cosmetics company, Lush UK, Mark Constantine.

The Labour leader also spoke of his admiration for other raptor species, such as hen harrier and peregrine, and of his distaste for wildlife crime which he fears will increase as a result of cutbacks on finance for the police.

He recalled that his first ever political speech as a teenager at his schools debating society was in opposition to fox hunting.

A vegetarian of longstanding, the Labour leader, who grew up in a semi-rural community, said he had never eaten pheasant.

At his allotment in north London, he has long grown his own vegetables, combining all that digging, raking and hoeing with watching out for robins, wrens and finches which are all occasional visitors to his plot.

Note: During the conversation, Mr Corbyn made no reference to his opponent within the parliamentary Labour Party, Angela Eagle.

BOOST FOR STORM PETRELS AND PHALAROPES THANKS TO RSPB'S SHETLANDS INITIATIVES

CHARITY RECEIVED MORE THAN £137.4-MILLION IN INCOME LAST YEAR - AND INVESTED £6.9-MILLION ON BUYING LAND AND IMPROVING VISITOR CENTRES

                                      

Storm petrels (Richard Crossley via Wikipedia)

THE countdown has begun to this year’s annual meeting of the RSPB which is due to be held at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster on October 7. Among the features will be a presentation on how much income the society (which has 1.19-million members) has received over the past 12 months and ways in which some of it has been spent. In his address to last year’s meeting, the honorary treasurer of the RSPB Council, Graeme Wallace, shone a light on the charity and its financial activities. Its total income was just over £137.4-million. Below are highlights from his wide-ranging speech.

Good morning everybody. It may not be a first, but it is unusual for the Treasurer to deliver the financial report with a musical introduction.

There is a good reason for that which I’ll come back to in a moment.

Regarding the financial performance of the RSPB in 2015-16, overall I am pleased to report that whilst we increased expenditure on vital work, we also ended the year with a headline surplus of £3.4 million.

We put this surplus, along with some of our financial reserves, to good use both acquiring new nature reserves and adding facilities to enhance our visitor experience.

Our financial reserves remain in reasonable shape to help us deal with whatever lies ahead.

This has been made possible thanks to the continuing trust and support of you, the members, to our dedicated and professional team of staff and volunteers, and to prudent financial management.

It is this that has allowed us to increase expenditure on conservation, while at the

same time charting a course for continued membership growth.

Before moving to the detail of the Treasurer’s report, I should like to reflect for just a moment on one example of what that increased conservation spend means for some of our key species.

Earlier this year, I was very fortunate to visit Shetland. This extraordinary place is probably the last bastion of breeding waders in the kind of numbers that I can remember from my youth: dunlin, curlew, redshank, lapwing, and snipe drumming overhead.

At dusk, the storm petrels return to their roost in the Moussa Broch, and churr happily to each other.

That sound is really something wonderful!

And it isn’t like this by chance.

The RSPB has been working hard to give nature a home here for years -

a project requiring scientific rigour and the building of trust with local landowners and crofters.

Needless to say, this doesn’t happen overnight.

While on the islands, I was lucky enough to see one of the flagship waders of Scotland: red-necked phalarope which breed in small numbers on the watery mires of Shetland. 

Red-necked phalarope (Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.net, via Wikipedia.

 We have been working on this species for quite a while, resulting in a fantastic growth in population.

Malcie Smith, the local warden, explained to me the extraordinary phalarope-tracking project they have undertaken.

The data showed, for the first time ever, that instead of flying to the Arabian Sea to overwinter, these tiny birds in fact flew all the way to the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Peru.

This epic return journey of 16,000 miles had never before been recorded for a European breeding bird . . . which brings me to the music.

This is part of a song cycle commissioned by the Head of Music at Haringey Music Service, following a cultural exchange between young musicians in the UK and Peru to explore connections between the two countries.

It is called One Small Bird: Ballad of the Red-necked Phalarope, and it was performed by more than 2,000 children at the Royal Albert Hall in London this year.

Trust, groundbreaking science, wonderful birds, and inspiring children about nature - this story seems to capture it all.

Turning now to the accounts, our net income (that is the money available for charitable purposes) was just over £100 million last year.

This was due largely to the continued generosity of our members and other supporters, including individuals and corporate bodies.

This level of income enabled us to increase our charitable expenditure again this year.

Our expenditure on charitable objects in the year reached £104.2-million.

This included £6.9-million on acquiring land and investing in visitor facilities which allowed us to expand several of our nature reserves, including Hesketh Out Marsh in Lancashire, where, instead of featureless fields, we will have a thriving tidal wetland full of wildlife.

We also made significant investment in the infrastructure on our reserves, including new facilities at Forsinard, and the visitor centres at Arne and Sandwell Valley.

The money we invest in our nature reserves covers a wide range of activities, from restoring and managing wildlife habitats to improving our visitor experience.

And in Nottinghamshire, we have a great new opportunity to engage with a huge number of visitors.

While we work hard to make sure our nature reserves are in ideal condition for wildlife, especially for our most vulnerable species, we also want to make sure our offices are in harmony with the natural environment.

And to help with this, we’ve installed a wind turbine at our HQ at the Lodge.

This turbine produces the energy equivalent of two thirds of the RSPB’s electricity needs - that’s the whole of the RSPB, including all of its reserves and regional offices.

This single turbine is making a big impact on our carbon footprint, as are the solar panels we’ve installed at seven of our reserves.

Managing our own nature reserves is a vitally important part of achieving our conservation objectives, but equally important is influencing the way that conservation takes place off our reserves.

We cannot, of course,  do all this alone; so working with partners and other like-minded organisations is crucial.

 During the year, we made £6.1 million available in grants to other organisations to support our conservation work, both in the UK and overseas.

This includes £1.4 million awarded to our BirdLife Partners throughout the world for projects such as our work to save rainforests in Sumatra and Gola in Sierra Leone.

Just like our partnership work in Shetland, rainforest conservation requires working closely with the local people and developing trust.

After years of being on the ground in Gola enduring a bloody civil war, then the ebola crisis, working with the local tribal communities we have reached agreement with them on how the forest might be managed sustainably.

This all needs financing, however, and following a technically challenging audit of the forest, it has been awarded the highest carbon credit rating.

We are now in a position to sell these credits to other organisations and individuals which, hopefully, will allow the development to pay for itself.

Let me turn now to Education and Communication. Saving nature means encouraging everyone to support nature conservation in whatever way they can whether that’s through individuals volunteering their time or giving a donation, or a politician making a decision that benefits nature, or a business working to reduce its carbon footprint.

We work hard at this because nature needs millions of people to make millions of decisions that favour it, long into the future.

It is especially important that we reach children, because, if the next generation does not feel connected with nature, it  will have no reason to save it

With all these things in mind, we increased our spending on Education and inspiring support by £1.9 million to £21.5 million.

Part of this was to continue improving our website and communications capabilities, which enable us to engage more effectively with people.

Another part of this spend was for the continuation of our Giving Nature a Home television advertising campaign.

This has been a very successful way for us to build a broader awareness of theRSPB, to reach new audiences and  further to increase the number of people supporting us.

The more people who rally alongside us to save nature, the more we are able to do.

This campaign has played an important role in increasing our membership over the last two years.

Before I move on to the RSPB’s income, I just wanted to say something about trust.

Public trust in charities was the subject of much media scrutiny during the year, and some fundraising practices received negative press coverage.

 The  RSPB organises its fundraising activities to the highest possible standards.

Our charity is built upon its reputation and relies upon the continuing support and trust of our members. We strive to go above and beyond the legalminimum requirements, and our fundraising team is committed to continuing to operate in this manner.

We are grateful to each and every one of you who have renewed your membership. The number of members who stay with us, year after year, is I think a good indicator of the trust you have in us.

And this year, our membership numbers reached an all-time high. Over the year, we recruited 100,000 new members, taking our total to 1.19-million.

The increase in members, along with support from other individuals and corporations, has helped increase our income for 2015/16 to reach just over £137.4- million.

This is before deducting the cost of generating funds, which includes the cost of goods for sale in our shops and membership recruitment costs.

Membership subscriptions and donations are our biggest income sources and the foundation of all we do, this year raising £47.7-million.

The  £20.8-million grant income stream appears, on the surface, to be a little disappointing compared with  last year. But many of our grant-funded projects span several years, and the year in which the income is recorded may cause fluctuations in the sum reported in the annual accounts.

With its £1.3-million upgrade, the superb new visitor centre at Bempton Cliffs forms a gateway and observation point for visitors to experience the UK’s largest seabird colony.

These cliffs are home to puffins, guillemots, razorbills and gannets, and with this new centre, you can fully appreciate the frenetic activity and the riotous sounds of the place.

Looking forward, we are of course concerned about the potential consequences of Brexit  on future grant prospects, and you can be sure that we will be doing all we can to protect them.

In the medium term we can draw some comfort from the fact that post-Brexit the Treasury has confirmed they will honour existing grant commitments.

Gifts of every size left in people’s wills are vital to the ongoing success of the RSPB, with legacies making up around 30 per cent of our net income. Legacy income for 2015-16 was £34-million - an increase of almost £3.5 million on the previous year.

This type of support is crucial to our success. It is financially important of course, but it also demonstrates people’s commitment to securing nature for future generations, and the faith that people have in the RSPB’s ability to achieve this on theirbehalf.

The bulk of our commercial trading income comes from our mail order catalogue, retail shops and cafes. Overall, trading income at £22.5m was up 3.3 per cent a pleasing result considering slower sales of bird food during the mild winter.

Pulling these income and expenditure threads together, you will appreciate that we are quite pleased to have been able to achieve much in spite of difficult prevailing conditions.

 Included in the expenditure are significant increases in investment in today’s conservation needs and in building support for the future.

And as we cast a wary eye to the immediate future, you will appreciate why we are thankful to have been able to maintain a reasonable level of financial reserves.

As at 31 March 2016, our free financial reserves stood at £12.5-million. This represents eight weeks’ worth of prospective annual expenditure, and is intended to allow us to plan our work programmes with confidence.

One of the questions that Council consider in their planning is how much should be spent on conservation work now and how much should be invested to ensure that current and future generations are knowledgeable about, and committed to, conservation.

 As mentioned earlier, we believe it is vital to invest in our children to increase their awareness of nature, the issues that it faces, and what can be done about it.

Today, less than 10per cent of children play regularly in natural places. We want to bring young people closer to wildlife, and so we are delighted that the supermarket Aldi has pledged to give the RSPB £2-million over three years to help increase children’s connections with nature.

The money has been raised via sales of carrier bags in England, Scotland and Wales.

It is an ambitious programme that will reach primary schools in 15 cities across the UK and family groups in public parks as well as four of our nature reserves where there will be a series of free nature sessions for schools.

Through our work with Aldi and beyond, we’re aiming for two million connections with nature over five years.

 So far the response has been terrific. Since rolling the scheme out in June 2015, we have given around 50,000 children an experience with nature through our work with Aldi alone.

With projects like this, we are helping make sure that future generations will value nature.

REPRIEVE FOR LODGE HILL NIGHTINGALES - BUT IS IT ONLY TEMPORARY?

                                                         

Nightingales at Lodge Hill would be lost for ever if the site were to be
developed. Photo: Andy Hay - RSPB Images

 CONTROVERSIAL plans  to build a new "community" at  Britain's top site for nightingales have been scuppered - at least for the time being.

Through its Homes and Communities Agency, the Government wants to sell off former Ministry of Defence land at Lodge Hill in Kent to make way for 5,000 homes and other infrastructure.

But it has had to put off the proposal following fierce opposition by opponents backed by the Kent Wildlife Trust and the RSPB.

Some 12,000 people wrote letters of objection  or signed a petition.

The decision has been welcomed by campaign manager Adrian Thomas who said: "The  Government agency has done the right thing - for now - and we thank them for that."

The chief executive of Kent Wildlife Trust, John Bennett, and the RSPB have also welcomed the reprieve, but the hold-up has enraged the leader of Medway Council, Cllr Alan Jarrett, who said the project would have created homes and employment.

"The people of Medway have been let down," he maintained.

However,  the long-term future of the Lodge Hill nightingales - one per cent of the British population - remains far from secure.

Although the land is  SSSI-registered, it is possible that, backed by Medway Council,  the HCA will come up with an alternative scheme.

If planning permission for development could be obtained, Lodge Hill could be sold to a housebuilder, generating a huge windfall for Government coffers.