Just a few minutes ago the Langholm Moor Community Buyout passed its fundraising target – but I’m sure they’d like a little more too.
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
Best bird book of 2020?
The Birdwatch Birders’ Choice awards allow you to vote for the best bird book of the year. These are the five short-listed books: Red Sixty Seven All the Birds of the World Multimedia Identification Guide: shearwaters Diary of a Young Naturalist Moult and Ageing of European Passerines I’ve only read one of these books, but…
Waiting, waiting, waiting…
One does wonder what the Scottish government is waiting for – surely it has made up its mind on the Werritty report. Why dither any longer? But the words in this recent response to correspondence do look vaguely promising.
Don’t forget the Red-legged Partridges
Red-legged Partridges are common birds on much of continental Europe but they are non-natives here in the UK. I’d be less worried about their impacts on native fauna and flora than that of Pheasants whose natural range brings them nowhere near the UK. But the fact that over 10 million RLPs are released for recreational…
Birders’ behaviour during the pandemic (so far)
This open-access publication looks at birders’ behaviour across a large number of countries and, surprise surprise, most birders have been affected by a global health pandemic. It’s not just you who didn’t get out so much! The paper rightly suggests that citizen science studies will be affected by recent and ongoing movement restrictions but also…
Who deserves a pile of guano?
The line-up for the Birders’ Choice Guano Award for Environmental Harm is a strong field: litter bugs HS2 Boris Johnson Trump administration Water companies Well, I found this quite easy – how about you? Water companies aren’t all bad, litter is annoying but its apparent resurgence in lockdown was more an eye-opener of the fact…
A week tomorrow
A week tomorrow the Wild Justice judicial review of the legality of releasing tens of millions of non-native gamebirds, without ensuring that those releases will not damage sites of conservation importance, will take place. The legal arguments are best left to lawyers but the science is open to anyone to inspect and comment upon. Here…
Marcus Rashford’s petition
Have you signed Marcus Rashford’s petition on free school meals? I have, even though I am quite persuaded by the argument that there are better ways to spend the money to help the poor at this time. But it’s a relatively small amount of money and even if some of it was wasted it’s a…
Songbird Survival looking for a CEO – no conservation knowledge or experience necessary
Here’s an opportunity to earn £50,000+ per annum leading an organisation with 1700 members which is the ‘voice for songbirds’. Membership is £20 per annum and of that almost £10 goes to the research fund. So membership subscriptions seem to fund only a third of the CEO salary at most. According to the Charity Commission…
News from Iceland
The troubles of the sole Fin whaling company in Iceland, Hvalur hf, continue as last week they lost a legal case and have been ordered to pay wages owed to the amount of 100.000.000kr, more than £540,000. Hvalur hf may well appeal. And just because I can, I’ll link to this video of my favourite…