Your choices

The annual Birdwatch Birders’ Choice shortlists are available online for you to choose in a wide variety of categories.  Here are my thoughts on some of the categories:

1.  Conservation Hero shortlist: me, Ruth Tingay, Katrin Jacobsdottir, Tim Mackrill, Boyan Slat.  It’s not that I’m not competitive, but I’d ask you to vote for someone other than me, partly because I’ve won this award before (and very proud I was too) but mostly because I think that Ruth Tingay richly deserves to win. If the Icelandic Prime Minister succeeds in banning whaling in Iceland then let’s give her the award that year – she’s heading in the right direction but hasn’t got there yet. There are lots of heroes out there and any of the other shortlisted folk would be good choices, but my vote goes to Ruth.
2. Campaign of the Year shortlist: Chris Packham bioblitz, Chris Packham’s People’s Walk for Wildlife and People’s Manifesto for Wildlife, my own judicial review against broodmeddling, Great British Spring Clean and legal challenge to Scottish Raven cull. It’s really not that I’m not competitive (!), but I’d ask you to vote for the People’s Walk for Wildlife and the People’s Manifesto for Wildlife, both organised by Chris Packham. Let’s be honest, if Chris were in the Conservation Hero list he’d deservedly win every year! But the Walk and Manifesto comprised a potential game-changing combination. Why didn’t a major NGO do this? What other high profile independent conservationists would do this? It’s got to be Chris!
3. Guano Award for Environmental Harm shortlist: Trump, Medway Council, Maltese government, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and photographer Nicolas Vanier. I always find it difficult to choose in this category.  My reading of the disturbance of the Greater Flamingo colony was that the pilot was more at fault than the filmmaker and I think it is probably time to move on at Spurn, whatever you may think about the new visitor centre. But Trump, Malta and Medway still leaves me with a trilemma.  I think I’ll vote for Medway as the top (bottom?) baddies – if they win this category it will be awful publicity for them and that may well help.
4. Birding News shortlist: Gamekeeper Timothy Cowin shoots Shorties, Great year for Roseate Terns, New extinctions feared in birds, White-tailed Eagles breed in Orkney and Our species has wiped out the majority of life on Earth.  Two good news stories and three bad ones. Again, I think the shooting industry will shudder slightly if we all pick the disgusting killing of two owls as the story with most impact this year.

And the other categories are: Local Hero, Rarity of the Year (btw did you know that the Green Heron was in the back garden of the former head of the Countryside Alliance and pro-grouse shooting Simon Hart MP?), Book of the Year, Site of the Year, Product of the Year, Discovery of the Year.  Plenty of room for thought among these too.  Here are the shortlists online and you’ll find them on p32-34 in Birdwatch magazine (where my column is on p29).

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