Budget for Birding?

With the budget flushed out in the open and getting more exposure than an Acro on Fair Isle how does it stack up for birders? As ever there seems to be good news and bad news, winners and losers. So here is one view of how it might pan out.

Twitching - another nail in the coffin with the 3% increase in Fuel Duty only re-phased rather than eliminated, surely won't be too long before national twitches are the preserve of the rich and the scruffy unemployed, too clever by half student  younger birders will be priced out of anywhere that involves more than a blagged car share from the one mate whose dad bought him a car or a bike.

Survey Monkeys - the big winners in the latest budget, with the announcement that a Green bank with £2bn of funding for renewable energy projects is to be established the gravy train goes on. All that funding should result in further proliferataion of wind farms both on and offshore and the resulting boom in Environmental Impact Assessments, saving several regional birdlines and at least one well known website from extinction.

South Coast Counties - local patch workers will be rubbing their hands in glee as the triple whammy of fuel tax, cider tax and the Cornish suppression legacy have a serious impact on the number of birders willing to bother heading for the 'new Med'. As Little Egret begin to reach plague proportions who would bet against the Scillies becoming the new Malta in a bid to attract rich fee paying hunters to the almost deserted and over priced B&B's?

Lariphiles - will be wringing their hands in despair as the continued increase in landfill tax continues to ensure that good gull sites get scarcer and scarcer. The first decade of the 21st century will be retrospectively viewed as a golden age of gull ID as even Iceland & Glaucous struggle to make it into annual double figures. Blatant attempts to string talk up the credentials of retarded Common Gulls will drive gull watchers underground rather than risk the derision of other birders.

London Bird Club - undergoes a huge expansion due to the addition of 15,000 ex civil servants who are now unemployed and having a mid-life crisis embarking on new careers as freelance writers. By 2015 they are officially recognised as the third party in Britsh Politics and David Lindo is tipped to be the first black London Mayor after current mayor Boris Johnson meets with an unfortunate accident whilst visiting the Tower 42 Vis mig demo.

Sin Taxes - are extended to anyone with membership of the UK400 Club, although an innovative credit scheme is put in place so that anyone offering room and board to twitchers has an offset against the List Tax. However taxes on those over 450 will be increased on the basis that anyone who has a big list is either loaded or has been fiddling the system in some way in order find the time and money to get a list that big.