Bring
the life back to our countryside
)
When you picture the countryside,
what do you see?
Rolling green hills alive with
the sights and sounds of wildlife? Trees full of birdsong? Insects buzzing
between hedgerows? Butterflies flitting from flower to flower? Our countryside
is iconic, inspiring countless books, songs and poems.
But things aren’t quite as they
seem.
Help stop the declines
Changes to farming techniques
over the last 40 years, driven by EU policy, have had a devastating impact on
nature. Numbers of birds like turtle doves, lapwings and skylarks have declined
by over 50% since the 1970s.
These and many more of the UK's
most loved species are disappearing at a terrifying rate - and could soon be
lost forever without your help.
But now more and more farmers are
asking for our support and advice to help put things right.
Let's think bigger
Saving wildlife in the UK
countryside has been one of the RSPB's top priorities for the past 20 years, and
we've taken huge strides forward in that time. We’re finding ways to help
reverse the declines of farmland birds, and sharing these techniques with
farmers across the UK. We already have a team of expert advisers and a band of
dedicated volunteers.
But to reverse the decline of our
cherished birds and other wildlife we need to think bigger... and we need your
help to make this happen.
We know we can do it
We need more staff to get out in
their wellies on farmland across the UK, to share effective and practical ways
of making farms more wildlife-friendly. And we've identified 24 areas where we
believe focusing our advice will make a big difference.
We're passionate about this
approach, because we know it works. Recent successes with stone-curlews,
corncrakes and cirl buntings have proved it can be done.
With your help, we can support
people to come together to help wildlife. Our team will work alongside them
every step of the way, but the farmers and the volunteers from their local
communities will be the real heroes.
Your chance to help
This renewed effort to tackle
this huge problem will cost £1 million. We’ve already secured £150,000 from the
EU LIFE+ fund, which leaves us £850,000 short. We can’t do this vital
work without your help, so if you can, please donate today.
Nature is declining right across
our countryside, but by stepping up for nature and donating £20, or whatever you
can afford, you can help us bring the life back.
Thankyou!
Nick Droy
Head of RSPB Conservation
Management Advice
PS If you've already donated to
this appeal, thankyou for your support
The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.
The flightless bird met its doom in the 17th century - and the fearsome Chasmosaurus belli died out around 150million years ago. And a bluefin tuna suspended above a giant food can serves to highlight the plight of endangered species.
A word about cryptolinks: We are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting, usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 
In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that - whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot, or lake monsters - it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean Zoologist to be interested in. So, after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.
