All change or no change?

BASC are having elections to their Council – it’s an interesting field of candidates. Clearly I don’t get a vote and I’d be struggling to find my favourite candidates having read the statements of them all. There’s an awful lot of ‘we’ve got to fight the external enemy’ in the statements and precious little ‘we’ve…

Paul Leyland – Holly Blue

Social Distancing Week 9. Holly Blue. Paul writes: I’ve been watching Holly Blues flitting around my garden for the past few weeks but they have never settled anywhere, until this week. I have a Holly bush in the garden, that I’ve been watching regularly, hoping one of the butterflies would show an interest in it….

Peregrine by Brian Leecy

This is a great image of one of three young Peregrines from a brood somewhere in the north of England. It’s an image to keep in mind when considering the controversy over Natural England’s licensing of removal of Peregrine chicks from nests for the purposes of ‘falconry’. Previous blogs on this controversy: 16 April: Natural…

Tim Melling – Black Grouse

I was driving across a moor in County Durham in January and I spotted this female Black Grouse from the car. It is the first close photograph I have ever managed of a female Black Grouse. Some books call them Greyhens but they are brown rather than grey so that seems like quite a daft…