Huw Irranca-Davies, former Defra Minister and former shadow minister, was today elected as chair of the Environmental Audit Committee (following the stepping down at the last general election of the excellent Joan Walley). Huw, once voted 48th sexiest man in Wales (nowhere near as sexy as the Hen Harrier of course) follows a class act…
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
A place called Invercauld
Henry parked in a layby somewhere between the River Dee and the River Don – I believe that this may be part of the Invercauld Estate. This area seemed to have very few birds and the usual large rectangular patches were burned into the hills. It wasn’t very pretty and Henry looks a bit unimpressed…
African vultures plummet in numbers – new study shows
In a paper published today in the scientific journal Conservation Letters, scientists say African vultures are likely to qualify as ‘Critically Endangered’ under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s global threat criteria. The study indicates that Africa’s vultures are declining at rates of between 70% and 97% over three generations; a time interval used…
BBS second visits
I completed the second visits to my two BBS squares the weekend before last. Each passed without huge incident. On my first square it was a rather low species total over the two visits, but last year was the highest ever so not much of a trend there. I was glad that there were still…
The military career of Jacob the goose.
Since it is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where the Coldstream Guards fought with gallantry that day at Hougoumont Farm, it seems fitting to recall the military career of Jacob the goose, also of the Coldstream Guards. In 1839 the Coldstream Guards were sent to Quebec in our colony in Canada. There,…