I have a pile of books to review as lots of publishers delayed publication until September and so there is now a flood. There will be two books reviewed on this blog on Sunday to enable me to keep my head above the rising tide; Dominic Couzens’s A Bird a Day and Hugh Warwick’s The…
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
RSPB Green Recovery Plan
Yesterday the RSPB launched this document with a rather ambitious title. In 15 pages, which amount to six and a half pages of text, the RSPB sets out its green recovery plan. As a bunch of ideas they are very much the right ideas. As a plan, it’s hardly a plan. As a report, it’s…
RSPB webinar with Rebecca Pow
I watched this webinar this morning and it was a good event. Thank you to the RSPB for putting it together. It coincided with the launch of what the RSPB call a Green Recovery Plan (I’ll come back to that later) but in many ways this event was a stand-alone event. Beccy Speight, RSPB CEO,…
from Mr Carbo
My news blast
I’ll be sending out a newsletter this morning. If you’d like to subscribe then have a look here and sign up, free, if you’d like to get occasional emails from me. You’ll be joining over 4000 subscribers.
Not many Pheasants in my neck of the woods
What a gorgeous bird the Pheasant is! Pheasant blasting starts on 1 October but I think they’ll be thin on the ground, and in the air, in these parts this year. On my recent journeys around rural Northamptonshire, and raids into Cambridgeshire to carry home loads of blackberries, there seem to be very few Pheasants…
A promise from Boris – piffle-Pfeffel?
When you are told something by a habitual liar then you have to take it with a mountain of salt. About this amount… But don’t worry about this one because it adds up to nothing anyway. Our Prime Minister is promising to increase protected areas for nature from an alleged 26% to a hypothetical 30%…
Badger petition update (2)
We are approaching the end of the fourth full day of this petition and it has already passed 37,000 signatures. I think this demonstrates how very angry many people are about government’s assault on one of our most loved native mammals. Two days ago there were only four constituencies with over 100 signatures and although…
Tim Melling – Badger
Comments Off on Tim Melling – Badger
Tim writes: back in May, during lockdown, something had tipped over both of my heavy birdbaths during the night, so I bought a cheap infrared trail camera to see if I could discover the culprit. On the very first night I found I had both Fox and Badger visiting the garden, and they have continued…
Grousers both
There really aren’t that many people involved in grouse shooting – it’s a niche hobby for the rich invented in the Victorian age and clinging on by its fingernails in the modern world. But once you get your eye in, you see them popping up everywhere in modern-day Britain. What failing government wouldn’t want to…