Beddington Farmlands habitat creation continues this autumn Viridor’s restoration of the 120-hectare Beddington Farmlands in South London is continuing with the creation of the first phase of the wet grassland habitat, including the start of a seeding programme that has seen over 150kg of seed spread across this first phase ahead of further habitat management….
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
Grouse moors, burning and climate change
I’m a Radio 4 addict but I missed PM yesterday as I was engaged with lawyers then, and for a lot of the day. But I caught up with this piece on climate change (starts 45 minutes into programme) and the mention of the government inactivity on banning burning on peatlands being possibly due to…
Badgers
Today Wild Justice is attempting to overturn the refusal of permission for judicial review of Natural England’s licensing of Badger culls. It’s a remote hearing and we’ll be watching by video-link (not available to the general public I’m afraid). The quickest way to hear what happened will be to sign up to the Wild Justice…
UK Biodiversity Indicators (4)
Following three earlier blog posts today (here, here and here). This is a quite spectacular graph showing the decline in public sector biodiversity spend in the UK over the last decade or so. There has been a steady increase in expenditure by NGOs but not enough to fill the spending gap left by our taxes…
UK Biodiversity Indicators (3)
Following on from two earlier blogs (here and here). Thezse two indicators from the marine environment look like they are going convincingly in the right directions – but this is defibnitely not my area of expertise so if you think differently then shout, please!
UK Biodiversity Indicators (2)
Following on from an earlier blog. Maybe we’ve decided that once-common birds that live on farmland don’t matter to us any more (but if we have, when did that happen and I’m not signed up to that view) but we must care about the best places for wildlife and priority species – surely? So let’s…
BTO press release – new Patron
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has today announced that His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge has become Patron of the BTO, assuming the patronage from His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh who has held the role for over 30 years. The patronage reflects the close alignment between two of The Duke of…
UK Biodiversity Indicators 2020 (1)
The annual, official report on UK Biodiversity indicators was published on Thursday to its usual blaze of apathy – so well done to the Guardian for noticing and commenting. Funnily enough, there was no DEFRA press release and this report was not featured on the DEFRA webpage. It is, of course, a mixture of good…
Sunday book review – Raptor Prey Remains by Ed Drewitt
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This is the type of book you will like if you like this type of book, or probably more likely, if you need this type of book. It is clearly a niche publication of most use to raptor workers who often visit the nests of raptors and want to identify the prey remains that they…
Sunday book review – English Pastoral by James Rebanks
James Rebanks’s earlier book, The Shepherd’s Life (reviewed here), was a great read despite being very irritating in many places. I made it this blog’s book of the year in 2015 and, rather more importantly for the author and publisher, it was a best-seller. This book is less irritating but is still a great read….