Sponsorship Request
In response to an appeal by Mike Dawson of Swallowtail Print (printer of LBC publications) for sponsorship re his firm’s participation in Champions of the Flyway event in Eilat in March, committee agreed a donation to BirdLife International of £100.
Champions of the Flyway – racing for geese in the desert.
Champions of the Flyway is a fund-raising bird race which has been running since 2014. A group of passionate Israeli birders had the idea of doing something to protect birds using the flyway that has Africa and Eurasia at either end and Israel in the middle. The campaign that year raised money to protect raptors passing through the bottleneck at Batumi in Georgia and since then efforts have focused on vultures in Kenya, Steppe Eagles in Kazakhstan, Quail in Serbia and Croatia among others. The projects are always chosen in conjunction with BirdLife International and all money raised is donated to the appropriate BirdLife Partner.
The Covid years have been difficult for international gatherings, but this year Champions is back in full swing. The target species for 2023 is Red-breasted Goose, which breeds in the high arctic and winters mainly in Bulgaria and Romania, passing through Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan on the way. The Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) and Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) are looking to fit satellite tags on a number of birds to identify key stop-off points on the migration path as well as tackle illegal hunting and educate hunters about the species. It will benefit Lesser White-fronted Geese which are also victims of illegal killing.
Teams from as far afield as the USA, Colombia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Tanzania, the UK and Israel will be competing in the event, which takes place on 27th March and lasts for 24 hours. The aim is to see as many species as possible during that period and a winning score is likely to be in excess of 160 species, which shows how good birding is in southern Israel during migration. This year COTF is sponsored by Zeiss and our team has been kindly supported by WildSounds.com
You can find out more at www.champions-of-the-flyway.com and it would be really valuable if club members can get behind a team and help raise both awareness of the event. As Nick Acheson says in his recently published book The Meaning of Geese, “To lose the Red-breasted Goose would be unpardonable. For it is the finest among geese.” And Nick is well worth listening to.
To donate; Click here =>
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/championsoftheflyway-teamswallowtail
Mike Dawson February 2023.
