Birds, Culture and Conservation

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to the Birds, Culture and Conservation Symposium at Oxford, which aimed to bring together poets, writers, artists and others with an interest in using the arts to raise the profile of conservation issues.

I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect, but as it turned out it was enjoyable, extremely thought-provoking, and far too short.

Helen Macdonald’s talk on urban Peregrines was excellent, along with John Barlow’s on haiku, but the highlight for me was probably Tim Birkhead’s stint during the afternoon, which managed to cram an astonishing amount into 20 minutes. But there were no real disappointments – I’ve spent the last fortnight following up on all sorts of things that came up.

Hopefully, this is just the start of something – at the very least, there’ll be another symposium, with a view to creating a bigger, more inclusive event in the future. In the meantime, it's intended to keep the blog going, so take a look…