Author: Mark

Born Bristol, UK Educated: Cleeve House School Bristol, Bristol Grammar School and Downing College Cambridge Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, Winter activity of pipistrelle bats. NERC post-doctoral Research Fellow, Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University Former Conservation Director of the RSPB, 1989-2011

Blue Planet 2 – what did you think?

Mark 22 Comments

On the basis that ‘Dog bites Man is not news, but Man bites Dog is news’ then I can understand why we saw Giant Trevally fish gobbling up young Sooty Terns. Did you see them? Quite something when a nearly 6-foot fish jumps out of the water to catch a tern in flight. And, above,…

Oscar Dewhurst – Black-tailed Godwit

Mark Comments Off on Oscar Dewhurst – Black-tailed Godwit

Oscar writes: During the summer I found myself in Suffolk for a few days, so spent an early morning in Minsmere’s East Hide in the hope of photographing some of the waders that were there. A couple of summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwits were feeding close to the hide, and their colours looked fantastic in the…

Wild food (10) – Amethyst Deceiver by Ian Carter

Mark 4 Comments

This is a very common species in the autumn and early winter in deciduous woodland, mostly under Beech trees in my part of the country. It provides an excellent example of the concept of ‘search image’ whereby things become much easier to find once you have got your eye in. You wouldn’t think that vivid…

Both Botham and the RSPB are wrong

Mark 43 Comments

Ian Botham talks rubbish a lot of the time, it seems to me (see here, here and here) and clearly  I am not alone as Birdwatch readers voted in droves for YFTB, for whom Ian Botham has spoken in public, in last year’s ‘Guano awards’ (see here, and see here for this year’s contenders).  One…