About this blog:
- innovation #1 – I’m pleased to say that this blog will be featuring some work from famous cartoonist Paul Thomas over the next few weeks to give it a wider airing. Paul is an author (see review of his book here), a witty presence on Twitter (@paulthomas992) and his work has appeared in the Evening Standard, Express and Independent newspapers. I’m expecting Paul’s ‘Unreliable history of Birdwatching’ strip to be snapped up for big money by a birding magazine very soon.
- innovation #2 – I’m also pleased to say that this blog will have another book reviewer sharing the load and that means you may see even more book reviews here on Sunday mornings. Ian Carter (ex NE) will be reviewing books here and his first review will appear on this Sunday morning.
- I will be travelling in Spain for much of April (in two chunks) so it is possible that response times will lengthen and post frequency will diminish – or you might not notice much different!
And in the news:
- a view from WWF about Brexit implications (but not much on nature)
- bird flu – no new positive cases in wild birds
- Wildlife consortium gets £4.6m from HLF to save Willow Tit, Hedgehog and much more – Martin Harper blog
- Ros Kerslake, Chief Exec of HLF, explains this new project quite badly on BBC R4 Today
- also today, on Farming Today (right at the end), the Pres of NFU was allowed out to have a go at regulation ‘There are many regulations which need to be refined, reviewed, where we can have better regulation and I would hope that the government will listen to our views‘ and ‘A lot of people in the farming industry voted for Brexit in the view that we would end up with more sensible regulation, better regulation so that’s got to be the aim of the discussions over the next few months and years.’
- tomorrow is April Fools’ Day
- an embargoed story about disappearing birds of prey will appear on this blog just after midnight tonight – it’s foolish, but not an April Fool.
- Save the date! Hen Harrier Day Highlands 2017, 6th August at 1pm at Boat of Garten community hall
Have a great trip, or two, to Spain. Looking forward to blogs from there.
I look forward to the blogs from Spain, the cartoons and Ians book reviews. In the news here I finally retired from FERA today. Whole day a bit surreal but of no consequence for the wider world to worry about.
Paul – more time for raptors and for you – enjoy!
On the HLF funding, nice but is this not just money for species recovery, a programme previously funded by the Department for Farming (sic) which seems to have otherwise abrogated its responsibility for biodiversity?