Reflections: This year was a special one for the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust which has been celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Founded in Oxford in November 1959 as the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Naturalists’ Trust to protect and conserve wildlife habitats and species, we now manage 1400 hectares across the three counties for wildlife and people.

It was a good year for me too. I moved from Sussex to Oxford, and now work with highly motivated and skilled colleagues in BBOWT’s Oxfordshire team — with new nature reserves, wildlife sites and species to get to know.

Workers in the fields: One of those species is the tree sparrow. A beautiful chestnut cap, dark cheek spots, white cheeks and collar set this attractive and active little bird apart from its familiar relative the house sparrow.

Although tree sparrows are rare in the UK, they are more common worldwide, with a range stretching from Britain to Japan.

The story of the tree sparrow provides a great example of what can go wrong when we start messing with the natural world.

In 1959, as British war veterans, academics and naturalists were setting up BBONT, Communist leader Chairman Mao declared war on tree sparrows in China.

He mobilised Chinese agricultural workers to destroy the nests of these dapper little birds and relentlessly chase them off food crops and roosting sites — all because they ate grain and were perceived to be depriving people of their harvest.

Millions of the birds dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion.

What Chairman Mao did not know was that tree sparrows, too, were workers in the fields; they played a crucial role in eating millions of insects such as locusts that also fed on agricultural crops.

Without their natural predators, locusts ravaged China’s harvests, contributing to the Great Chinese Famine in which 30 million people died.

New Year’s resolutions: Since I came to Oxford I’ve not yet seen a tree sparrow. “They were here on the feeders just before you came,” said my colleague Pim Young when we were on Chimney Meadows Nature Reserve last summer; but never when I have been there.

So my New Year’s resolution is to ‘break the tree sparrow duck’. I am going to make sure I actually see a tree sparrow in 2011.

Enjoying the journey: Whilst in pursuit of my own personal slice of tree sparrow-shaped heaven I am also resolved to enjoy my journey with wildlife. If I get to Chimney Meadows and do not break my tree sparrow ‘duck’, I will get down to the hides to look for over-wintering wildfowl.

Maybe I will see a flock of wigeon grazing on the island with a smattering of teal keeping them company.

Wigeon are for me the unmistakable harbinger of winter. You will often see these ducks with their rusty-brown heads down, grazing the wet pasture.

Sometimes, absorbed in their feeding, a group will turn in unison, the yellow blazes on their high foreheads flashing gold in the washed-out winter light; the delight-filled promise of spring to come.

I am going to enjoy the journey and enjoy what each day and season brings in this beautiful county.

But more than this I am also going to keep on doing what BBOWT staff, volunteers and supporters have been doing for the last 50 years — working for wildlife so that wildlife works for us.

Happy wildlife-watching throughout 2011.

Join in: If you want to get involved with wildlife this winter visit www.bbowt.org.uk for wildlife events near you in January.

Join the Friends of Chimney Meadows and see tree sparrows.

The Friends is a group of dedicated and friendly conservationists, building boardwalks and bird hides, and surveying species.