Every winter for the last 11 years, our charity takes out up to 1200 school children around Poole Harbour on School Bird Boats to give young people the opportunity to explore and learn about the fantastic wildlife and local area they live in. All of these children come from local primary schools and join us completely free of charge thanks to sponsorship from local cosmetics company Lush. All trips leave from Poole Quay with Greenslades Pleasure Boats to explore a large part of the harbour and its special habitats for 2 hours, led by our staff and volunteers.

For the duration of our trips, each of the children receives a pair of binoculars to bring them closer to the wildlife that we encounter. After 10 years of running this project, many of our binoculars have become damaged or worn out. We are now hoping to replace all of our school optics with good quality binoculars that are well-suited for young birders, so that every child can have the best experience and opportunity to see great birds on our trips. In the last year, Opticron has already kindly replaced nearly half of the binoculars used in the project free of charge, helping us to reach this goal.

We are now looking to replace the remaining old binoculars, by launching a public fundraiser of £1500 to purchase 30 pairs in the run-up to Christmas. We will be donating any of our usable old binoculars to schools for use in their classrooms, lessons and holiday birdwatching kits.

We’d greatly appreciate any support that you can give so that we can continue to run this free school bird boat project, inspiring the next generation of nature conservationists.

Thank you for your support!

The BoPH Team