#BirdersTogether

So what is #BirdersTogether you may well ask? Well, this is the hashtag for a link that has been used on Facebook to help raise money for people at the grass roots level of Colombia's birding community who have zero income due to Covid-19. So what's that got to do with us right? And that's not an easy question to answer really, except from my own personal point of view having birded in that great country last year and meeting some of these people I just felt I wanted to help. For some reason, and I've honestly looked at this in the most naive way, I thought I could do something to help. My company (Zoothera Birding) sent a donation to the Vaki Crowdfunding platform almost straight away and I kept following to see if the donations total was rising and it was..... but very slowly. In fact, too slowly. At the same time, my wife was tinkering with an idea that has been burning with her for a while and she suggested we design something to sell and raise money that way. You know, what i've seen during this year is that many, many people have their own agenda and rarely do people do something for anyone else without there being something in it for them! Sad but true. You may even call me a cynic. So we both wanted to do something good.....Anyway, she designed some greetings cards from my photos and then got in touch with a nearby printers and we now have the finished product. And here they are....

Bicolored Antpitta

Brown-banded Antpitta

Chestnut-bellied Flowerpiercer

Chestnut-naped Antpitta

The exquisite Crescent-faced Antpitta

Northern Tawny Antpitta

Pale-naped Brushfinch

Purplish-mantled Tanager

Slaty-crowned Antpitta

The daddy of them all.... Undulated Antpitta

They really are top quality greetings cards, printed on really thick card and being 158mm x 158mm - they are rather large. So despite the Vaki Crowdfunding deadline has passed we can still get money to these people who desperately need it via PayPal. And it's not the big tour companies who are getting the money, it's the people at the grass roots level of Colombian birding. The guy who walks miles to dig for worms and then goes every day to feed the antpittas we all so desperately want to see. It's the other people involved in doing the mundane jobs around the feeding stations, restocking hummingbird feeders, tinamou feeding stations etc. It's the drivers who ferry us birders up precipitously narrow mountain tracks and whose main source of income is this. It's the small B&B's in remote villages, it's the people who cook for groups of birders, the people who do the laundry. The ones who do the dirty work, the hard work. Can you even begin to imagine the hours and hours of legwork and patience required to start an antpitta feeding station...? Me neither but it's tough! Can you imagine having zero income at all for the whole year and beyond, due to this killer virus and zero tourism for a year? So by purchasing a pack of 20 greetings cards you can contribute to a small monthly wage for the hardest hit of Colombia's birding community. It's just £20 for a pack of 10 good quality cards with free 2nd Class postage if you live in the UK. 

Front and Back of one of the cards...

My wife has set up a website where you can buy the Colombia cards right now. It is called Country View Arts and the website is www.countryviewarts.co.uk 

And during these strange times you might even want to purchase a face mask too. Love them or hate them they are going to be around for a while, so why not go to Tesco's looking like a birder?

Crescent-faced Antpitta face mask

Apologies if i've bored you, but i'm off birding now! Stay safe everyone.