Somerset Wildlife Trust

I've just been looking again at an earlier post on Starlings showing a video clip of a roosting display. On the screen with the clip from UTube are the admirable words, Join the RSPB. I hope lots of people do. But I must also urge you to join the Somerset Wildlife Trust  (SWT) , perhaps as well as  another conservation group, because it provides an all inclusive framework for all wildlife conservation. A natural focus point for our interests and concerns. There are many groups dealing with every thing from frogs to fungi and from birds to bumblebees and each one is contributing to our knowledge and awareness of the needs of wildlife.But it all needs a focus point if we are to succeed in our common aim of standing up for wildlife.

I'd like to quote words written in the cover of the 2010 National Trust Handbook because, for me, its strikes a cord and whilst it's promoting the National Trust, by changing just two words it is surely true of all experiences of wildlife and all our nature reserves and living landscapes.

We all need beauty. We all need fresh air, open doors, hidden depths, new views.

We need places that can lift our spirits and help us find a different rhythm in our lives.This kind of refreshment isn't a luxury; its vital. Extraordinary places can give us all this.

The National Trust stands up for these places. We give them a life into the future and we invite everyone to enjoy them. We help people belong to places and places belong to people.

 So do join the Wildlife Trusts and help the Trusts and the hundreds of volunteers to help wildlife  cope with all the pressures that our modern society places on it. Here in Somerset every winter we are lucky to have our starlings to lift our spirits.