National bird vote
The robin won, but will the poll help struggling species? Plus The push to ban microplastics in cosmetics
The result of a national bird poll offers a chance to reconnect urban children with wildlife.
The robin will have an inner-city nature park dedicated to it and could even end up on the back of a coin after winning the vote for Britain’s national bird, according to the poll’s organiser David Lindo, the ‘Urban Birder’.
Lindo said he hoped that the Government would now give official backing to the public’s choice of the robin – which easily won with 34 per cent of the vote – as our national bird.
Environment minister Rory Stewart said that the robin was synonymous with the British countryside. “The UK has some of the world’s finest wildlife, and I would encourage everyone to make use of our wonderful assets like our national parks and forests, where birds like the robin can be seen in their natural environment,” he added.
Despite coming out against the robin before announcing the results on Springwatch Unsprung, Lindo said he was happy. “I’m really glad because all British birds are winners as far I’m concerned. Of the quarter-of-a-million people who voted, 60 per cent weren’t members of a wildlife group,” he pointed out. The result was just the start off aan ongoing campaign to ttryy to reconnect people, and pparrticularly children, with nnatture. “I take kids from innneer-city schools on walks, andd whhile I’m horrified by their lacck off knowledge, they are faascinnated [by birds],” LLindoo revealed.
Coonservationist and bloggger Mark Avery, who cammpaigned for the hen harrrier to get the top spot, saidd he was pleased with the outcome. “A round of applauseapplaa for the hen harrier, a bird that nobody has heard of, which was placed ninth,” he said. “It needs all the help it can get because it’s Britain’s most persecuted bird.”
Avery said that the national bird poll had engaged people with nature in a way that mainstream wildlife groups had failed to do recently. “I wish more birders and naturalists would engage with politics. Nothing sounds duller than the Common Agricultural Policy, but it is very important to how many birds we see around us.”
James Fair
224,438 The number who voted in the national bird campaign.