Category Archives: Uncategorized
The rather diminished Big Butterfly Count?
It’s time for the Big Butterfly Count- good luck! Have you ever thought how beautiful are butterflies? Me too! Then imagine this butterfly without its wings – not so pretty then is it? And I just wonder – will the Bird Fair survive the weather given that the Game Fair has not? And …
40 days of…?
Today is St Swithin’s (or Swithun’s day) and by tradition the weather today will stick with us for the next 40 days. At the moment the sun is shining here in east Northants – I wonder! Whatever the weather, in 40 days the swifts will be largely departed and wader passage will be well underway. …
It’s raining, raining, raining
It’s raining. It’s still raining. And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. G K Chesterton A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain …
Worth a look, and then another look
You can get a sneak preview of one chapter of my new book, and so much more, by walking into your local WH Smith or similar and buying this annual. My article is about bird reintroductions and covers some of the material of Chapter 8 in Fighting for Birds – 25 years in nature conservation. …
A bucolic scene
I just had to take a ‘snap’ (although iPhones make a faint buzz rather than a snap) of these flowers, as I have seen so few this year. Where was I, do you think? Answer at ‘end of day’. Answer: thank you for some good guesses, and some well argued thoughts and near …
See you at the Bird Fair and five campaigning opportunities
It’s about six weeks until the Bird Fair (and two weeks until the Game Fair). I hope to be at the Bird Fair on all three days signing copies of my book which will soon be available. One evening after being at the Bird Fair I usually sit outside my house in the garden with …
Where next with England’s forests?
The report of the Independent Panel on Forestry is a good one. I recommend that anyone interested in access, wildlife, trees, public policy, land use and politics should read it. The question for us all, particularly the coalition government, is ‘what next?’. Let’s go back to those distant-seeming days of early 2011 when David Cameron …
Forest Panel’s report published
The final report of the Independent Panel on Forestry has been published. The initial Defra response to the report was fairly warm, and fairly non-committal. Everyone else seems to like it: RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, National Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Save Our Woods, CLA, Royal Forestry Society. Media coverage includes: BBC, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph. Read …
Chris Packham’s secrets
Have you seen Chris Packham’s Secrets of Our Living Planet series? I have to confess to having seen only most of one episode of the three that have been broadcast. My eye didn’t travel further than the football that was on TV and that’s why I have missed them. I caught most of last Sunday’s …
Wildlife Trusts rehabilitated
The Wildlife Trusts, in my opinion, did not distinguish themselves over the issue of public forests and SSSIs in 2010/11. They gave the impression to many of us of having one eye on the main chance and having lost focus on the needs of nature. Let’s put it down to a momentary aberration which we …