A record conservation donation from Honeyguide in 2025

In November 2025, Honeyguide made our biggest single donation ever to a conservation project overseas. That donation, of £5,920, went to the current campaign by SPEA (BirdLife Portugal) to create a nationwide network of bird sanctuaries.

Honeyguide group at the safe havens project site, 31 October 2025, looking into a pond. The owner is on our left (photo by Hugo Sampaio). 

Honeyguide’s autumn group in Algarve & Alentejo included a visit to a SPEA ‘safe haven’ a short drive from our hotel in Alte, where it was a pleasure to meet the landowner and hear his enthusiasm for wildlife. 

This donation – €6,578.67 when received by SPEA in Portugal – was unusually high. Each group member’s conservation contribution was supplemented by Gift Aid, for those eligible, our usual routine. There was an additional donation+ Gift Aid. The major boost came from a legacy of £5,000 left to the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust by the late John Durdin.

The Trust’s trustees felt that this project brings tangible benefits to wildlife through SPEA, with which we have a longstanding link: the total donated to SPEA since 2005 now totals £13,088.

Honeyguide group at Budens Marsh, Algarve (Hugo Sampaio).

Total donations in 2025 were £9,800 (£5,705 in 2024, £4,530 in 2023), bringing the total for all conservation contributions through Honeyguide since 1991 to £165,317.

Our donations in 2025 were as follows:

·    March, Morocco: £5705 to GREPOM (BirdLife Morocco) towards protection of the endangered northern bald ibis.

Northern bald ibis, north of Agadir, helped by our group in March via GREPOM (Mervin Nethercoat).

·   March, Extremadura: £220 sent to SEO (BirdLife Spain) in Extremadura.

·   April, Crete: £830 sent to Hellenic Ornithological Society (HOS, BirdLife Greece).

·   April, Menorca: £560 sent to The Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa (GOB – the Balearic Ornithological Group)

·   April/May, Spanish Pyrenees: £590 sent to SEO Aragón (BirdLife Spain).

·   May: South of Salamanca, £200 to SEO (BirdLife Spain) in Salamanca region towards protecting crop-nesting harriers.

·   June, Picos de Europa: £880 sent to Zerynthia, a butterfly conservation NGO in Spain.

Duke of Burgundy, Picos de Europa, June 2025. Our donation supported butterfly NGO Zerynthia.

·   November, Algarve & Alentejo: £9800 to SPEA in Portugal, as described above.

Part of the ethos of Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays has always been to contribute to the protection of the wildlife that we enjoy, put into effect by donations to conservation projects and organisations linked to our activities. These donations were all through the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust, through which we can claim Gift Aid and increase our charitable activity.

The £5,705 donated this year brings the running total for all donations to £165,317 since 1991. Total donations in 2025 were £9,800 (£5,705 in 2024, £4,530 in 2023). 

Chris Durdin