Our rangers’ highlights of 2024

The last 12 months have been busy and rewarding for the Bird Aware Solent team.

As well as our day-to-day work of encouraging everyone who visits our beautiful coastline to give birds the space they need, we’ve worked on lots of projects to celebrate wildlife-aware behaviour. We’ve also welcomed two new members to our team: Rangers Eloise and Toni.

This year’s projects include our ongoing dog walking initiative, Coast & Country Canines, February’s Art Fest, the recent Great Coastal Birdwatch, our current photography competition, as well as working with partners on other initiatives to help protect our coastal birds.

We hope you’ll come and say hello if you see us out and about on the coast or at events throughout 2025.

Here’s some of rangers’ highlights of 2024, together with some beautiful illustrations by the talented Ranger Eloise.

Ranger Richie’s highlights

“This year, I have reached a great milestone in updating our water sports map to include Portsmouth, Langstone and Chichester Harbour. Moving on into the new year, the next phase of our wildlife aware guides is taking shape! It’s exciting to think that we’ll soon have a resource that is accessible for the whole Solent region.

“It’s nice to feel so settled within Bird Aware Solent and being able to contribute to such a hard-working team. It really does feel that we are doing vital work and hopefully we are helping people learn about how important the Solent coastline truly is for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds every winter.”

Here’s some of Richie’s favourite wildlife experiences in 2024:

Ranger Charlotte’s highlights

“The winter season so far has gone really well, and other than an occasional storm we’ve been fairly lucky with the weather. It’s been lovely meeting people out on the coast and showing them the birds, so thank you to everyone who has stopped to have a chat with our ranger team.

“Over the past three months we have hosted many guided walks, given talks to local community groups and delivered sessions to schools. It’s also been great to see the Great Coastal Birdwatch project grow for another year. It was a huge success with lots of people taking part and coming along to meet us at our events. The Titchfield Haven Open Day was another highlight, and a real celebration to mark the arrival of the birds on our coast”.

Here’s some of Charlotte’s favourite wildlife experiences in 2024:

Ranger Alice’s highlights

“Launching the Coast & Country Canines’ Waggy Walks initiative has been a highlight of 2024. It’s always so much fun watching the dogs make new friends and explore, and we love the opportunity to showcase the special walking routes featured on our website in real life.”

We love it when we see dog walkers looking out for wildlife and taking care not to disturb birds – Bird Aware’s Coast & Country Canines project helps to shine the spotlight on wildlife-friendly dog walking.

Here’s some of Alice’s favourite wildlife experiences in 2024:

Ranger Tony’s highlights

“I would say the highlight of the year for me so far is getting the schools outreach programme up and running. I’ve given talks on migration and adaptation to Years 5 and 6 which complement the Science National Curriculum – and a talk about migration routes and the impact of humans on the local environment linking into the Year 7 Geography National Curriculum. I’ve spoken to children aged 5 years of age all the way up to 12 year olds and the programme has reached over 600 students so far this season.

“I’ve also enjoyed writing several blogs on various topics this year, in particular, the benefits of being in the great outdoors and especially birdwatching. You’re never too young or too old to get into birdwatching. Not only is it a good way to keep the brain ticking over and make new friends, it also brings great joy to the participant”.

Ranger Eloise’s highlights

“This year has given me such a fantastic glimpse into the world of birds along the Solent coastline. In the summer, I started off as a complete novice when identifying our wintering migratory birds, and although I’ve still got lots to learn as a ranger, I’m growing in confidence”.

Find out more about our events for 2025.