On Monday I mentioned that we had one last Conservation Club give-away to launch before Christmas - and like everything we’ve offered already (three Sound Approach books, ten Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust memberships, BWPi/BBi DVDROMs and a platinum subscription to BirdGuides‘ News Services) this is another cracker (get the festive reference there folks? Heck, if I have to explain it the joke is kind of lost…)!

The good folks at Princeton University Press (PUP) are supporting our new conservation initiative by donating THREE copies of the soon-to-be-released - yes, it’s not even available yet! - 10th Anniversary Edition of ‘Galapagos islands born of fire’ by Tui de Roy.

Tui grew up on the islands and has amassed an absolutely stunning collection of photographs, written beautiful accounts of the wildlife and the magic of living in one of the world’s remotest places, and Princeton and their co-publishers have produced an absolutely beautiful book that is a must-have for anyone who is interested in the Galapagos Islands, photography, birds, travel, and conservation. And if anyone reading this isn’t interested in those things can I ask how you ended up at 10,000 Birds?

Readers might justifiably be asking how - considering that ‘Galapagos islands born of fire’ isn’t generally available yet - I know all this? Because the crew at PUP made sure that Corey (and what’s he done recently to deserve such favouritism eh?) received an early Christmas present in the form of a much-coveted review copy! Yes, darn it, I wanted this book myself, but I have to admit he’s not done too bad a job reviewing it and it was indeed he that said it was brilliant and all that other stuff that made me sound so happily precogniscent…

Corey’s review is right here, and if you don’t want this book after reading what he’s written I’ll - er, well, I’ll be really very surprised actually.

Despite all best intentions it’s perhaps likely that we won’t manage to get this book sent out by Christmas: the postal service is under a lot of strain this time of year, and Jessica Pellien and Casey LaVela at PUP who helped us organise this give-away have a LOT on their plates mid-December obviously - but we would like at the very least to have a winner by the 25th (just in case the winner needed reassuring that there was more than yet another pair of novelty socks coming their way over Christmas…).

So, if you’d like to win one of three copies of the beautiful 10th Anniversary Edition of ‘Galapagos islands born of fire’ by Tui de Roy you need:

• a) to be a member of the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club (you can join by hitting the giant ‘Subscribe’ button below,
• and b) you need to answer the following question by 24:00 GMT 21st DECEMBER 2009.

Please send your answer charlie10000birds@gmail.com by 24:00 GMT 21st DECEMBER 2009. If you could use ‘CClub: PUP’ in the subject line that would be a great help.

The winners will be notified by email no later than THREE days after the closing date.

Princeton have offered to send out the books themselves to save us postage (many thanks!) so I’ll need a mailing address, which I’ll ask the winners for in the ‘Congrats, you’ve won’ email!

Don’t forget that Members can enter every single competition we run for just that one little 25USD/15GBP payment - WHICH GOES TO SUPPORT CONSERVATION remember - for twelve months from the date of joining the Conservation Club!

So what else do we have to ‘give-away’ right now?

The wonderful BirdGuides have donated a DVD-ROM of their stunning Birds of the Western Palearctic Interactive (BWPi) (which Lars Svensson, author of the Collins Bird Guide) says is “…easily the best-value buy I’ve made for years. Excellent.”) AND a DVD-ROM of the superb British Birds Interactive (BBi) which is described as “a whole bookcase of material all on one disk”. Retail value of this package is over 200GBP/300USD!

Incredibly, BirdGuides’ generosity hasn’t stopped there and they’ve also given us a PLATINUM subscription to their superb BirdGuides News Services to give-away to another lucky Conservation Club member (worth over 90USD/60GBP)!

The Platinum level subscription gives users access to four separate news services + access to the BirdGuides webzine + Iris Pro!

Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy 2010 from BirdGuides I reckon!

So, how can you win these amazing prizes?

Firstly, you MUST be a 10,000 Birds Conservation Club Member and you must use the email address you joined with to enter (that’s how we identify who is a member and who’s not).

Secondly, you need to answer the following questions by 24:00 GMT DECEMBER 31ST 2009 (answers can be easily found on the BirdGuides homepage).

The winners (or single winner conceivably) will be notified by email no later than three days after the closing date.

New members can enter these two competitions provided they join the Conservation Club by 24:00 GMT on December 28th 2009.

We’ve been given TEN (yes, TEN!) full single adult memberships for the superb Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust (WWT) to give-away to Conservation Club members (that’s one WWT membership to ten different Club Members in case anyone was hoping to have their entire Christmas gift list problems solved in one quick hit - though do please note if you do win your membership can be ‘gifted’ to anyone you nominate)!

To enter the competition to win one of TEN Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust single adult memberships, 10,000 Birds Conservation Club Members (using the email address they joined with) need to answer the following question by 24:00 GMT WEDNESDAY 23RD DECEMBER (NB: Please note that WWT have said to us that this offer is not available to anyone who is currently a WWT member, or who has been a member of WWT in the last 3 months):

• Send your answer to Charlie at charlie10000birds-AT-gmail.com - please use the subject line CC Competition: WWT (we already have overlapping competitions and it will make sorting entries out that much easier).
• The winners will be notified by email no later than THREE days after the closing date.

• A single adult membership of WWT normally costs £34.00 (approx 56 USDollars) so for a one-off payment of just 25USD/15GBP you stand a fairly good percentage chance - we only launched last month remember - of winning a WWT membership that’s worth more than twice as much!

Thanks again to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust for supporting this initiative of ours!

And remember this is just for starters! Members can enter every single competition we run for just that one little 25 dollar/15 gbp payment - WHICH GOES TO SUPPORT CONSERVATION remember - for twelve months from the date of joining the Conservation Club!

The 10,000 Birds Conservation Club has been launched as part of our commitment to supporting projects on Critically Endangered/Endangered birds and to Birdlife International’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme‘, which we signed up to as Species Champions in January 2009.

Species Champions are ”a growing community of Companies, Institutions and Individuals who share our concerns and demonstrate their commitment to protecting the planet’s natural heritage by funding the work undertaken by our Species Guardians”.

There are different ‘levels’ of Species Champion (requiring different levels of financial commitment). Whilst we joined the PEP at a ‘lower level’ 10,000 Birds is now officially a Species Champion along with such conservation giants as Sir David Attenborough and the British Birdwatching Fair, conservation minded businesses like Swarovski Optik (who also sponsor 10,000 Birds of course), In Focus, and WildSounds (the Species Champions for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper), and a small number of unsung individuals like Dr. Urs-Peter Stäuble, Ed Keeble, and Peter Smith.

• For a full list of Species Champions please go to BirdLife Species Champions ‘Roll of Honour’.