The Blackcap which was seen in my garden on 6 December didn’t show up again until yesterday, 4 January, when it (or another male Blackcap) spent a large part of the middle of the day on the fat balls. We were given this rather flashy fat ball feeder and this Blackcap seems to love it…
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
Spain’s bird of the year
Comments Off on Spain’s bird of the year
The excellent SEO (Sociedad Espanola de Ornitologia, the Spanish partner of BirdLife International) is having a vote for their bird of the year and the choice offered is between Iberian Grey Shrike, Common Swift and Montagu’s Harrier. Last year the successful species was Quail (which was also up against Montagu’s Harrier and Iberian Grey Shrike)….
Quiet day…
There really doesn’t seem to be much happening in the world of nature conservation today but I was very pleased to see the excellent Trees for Life reach and pass their fundraising target for this legal challenge against Nature Scotland.
Sunday book review – Birds of Chew Valley Lake by Keith Vinicombe
Chew Valley Lake, CVL to its friends, has been an important part of my life – for a period of just about five years it was where I wanted to be, with my binoculars, in any spare moment. That was nearly 50 years ago and the journey to CVL was then a 40-minute cycle ride…
Tim Melling – Sabines Gull
Tim writes: Sabine’s Gulls are quite a difficult gull to see. They breed in the high arctic but migrate south after breeding to spend the winter at sea off the continental shelves in the southern hemisphere. In the Atlantic they mainly winter off southern Africa and South America. They are only occasionally seen from land,…
New Year Honours
Prof Sir Dieter Helm – former Chair of Natural Capital Committee. Author of two books highly rated by this blog; Net Zero (published 2020) and Green and Prosperous Land (published 2019). Joan Edwards OBE – for services to Marine Conservation Dr Alistair Burn MBE – for voluntary services to conservation in Cambridgeshire Raymond Marsh MBE…
Happy New Year!
I hope you weren’t partying and snogging everyone in sight to celebrate the New Year last night. Somehow I don’t picture the readership of this blog as having many superspreaders in it but, you never know. I had an early night! I’m looking forward to many things this year and now we are well past…
Thoughts on 2020 (7th and last) – was it a good year for you?
I think we’re all supposed to say that it has been an awful year – and it has had its moments – but actually, I’ve had a lot of fun. The bad things have been mostly to do with not seeing friends and family enough. Our two offspring have had big events in their lives…
Thoughts on 2020 (6) – this blog
2020 was a record year for readership (pageviews) on this blog. Here are the previous five years (1 Jan – 31 Dec) and this year: 2020, 1,331k pageviews (with a few hours still to go) 2019, 1,139k pageviews. 2018, 898k pageviews 2017, 876k pageviews 2016, 1,254k pageviews 2015, 808k pageviews But what of the content?…
Thoughts on 2020 (5) – nature conservation
I don’t think that nature conservation, as a movement, comes out of 2020 very well. The economic challenges should have brought home to many nature conservation organisations that they have morphed too much into being part of the entertainment industry in recent years and have loosened their nature conservation and environmental roots. When it came…