RSPB hops out of the birdbox

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds wants to dump its "woolly-pullover, sandalled idealists" image and relaunch itself as a campaigning environmentalist organisation in a series of new poster advertisements.

The RSPB wants to ditch its image as a bird-watchers club and harness the power of its 967,000 members. The size of its membership makes the RSPB a bigger conservation charity than Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

"Anything called the RSPB people automatically put in a birdbox," said Barbara Young, the organisation's chief executive. "Our role has always been much wider and has involved protecting a whole range of environments that take in water, transport and countryside policy."