Who doesn’t love a turtle? asks the headline. Quite a few to judge from the reception this piece got on social media. Two lads planning to make money out of captive breeding reptiles and amphibians and with an ambition to reintroduce herptiles to the UK – quite a few of them. When I was their…
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
Interesting and important paper
This paper (accepted for publication and avialable online – but may have some last minute changes added to it in terms of copyediting) looks at trends in wetland bird species across RSPB nature reserves and compares them with ‘counterfactuals‘. You’ll have to read the paper to find out what counterfactuals are in general, and which…
Wildcats again
Apologies for the late posting of this morning’s post – technical issues connecting to the database (whatever that means!). Yesterday’s guest blog by Dominic Woodfield was on a contentious issue – the right way to conserve Scottish wildcats. This is an important issue and I’m grateful to Dominic for writing about it. What doesn’t seem…
Neonics and sugar beet
Following this post about neonics and sugar beet from mid December, permission has been granted by the UK government for use of neonicotinoid pesticides on sugar beet in 2021. Today’s blog by pesticide expert Prof Dave Goulson is well worth a read on the Wildlife and Countryside Link blog.
Cry havoc
This is really a story about restaurants being shut rather than damage to woodlands. It’s a bit difficult to believe that a couple of years of low culling of deer in woodlands is going to make that much difference to their ecological status. If so, it suggests that there is far too close a link…
Guest blog – Is it really too late to save the Scottish wildcat? by Dominic Woodfield
Dominic Woodfield is the Managing Director of Bioscan, a long established and well-respected consultancy specialising in applied ecology. He is not a wildcat specialist, but has significant experience of working with rare and protected species and is currently instructed by Wildcat Haven to advise on regulatory and ecological matters, including on the methodology for their…
Sunday book review – Wild Farming by Robin Page
It would be fair to ask what this book is about: and that is a question to which there is no easy answer. The first part of the answer is that it is not the book pictured above envisaged by booksellers (eg see here, here, here), and indeed Quiller (the intended publisher) who claimed Wild…
Tim Melling – Curlew Sandpiper
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Tim writes: this was the first time I had managed a decent shot of a Curlew Sandpiper. I took it at Adwick washlands near Barnsley early morning in September. The sun was shining without a breath of wind and this Curlew Sandpiper was close. The water surface was rippleless creating perfect mirrored reflections. I managed…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Back in the garden
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Our live Christmas tree is back in the garden again. One wonders what it will see over the next 11 months or so. The male Blackcap is currently a frequent daily visitor to fat balls. Will he still be around, will he turn up, for Big Garden Birdwatch on 29-31 January?