The subspecies of Yellow Wagtail that breeds in Britain is flavissima, which means very yellow, as opposed to the nominate Continental breeding subspecies flava, which just means yellow. The two are pretty similar from the neck down but our British flavissima is also yellow on the throat, cheeks and eyebrow with a complementary green crown…
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
Jane V. Adams – Clutching at Straws
Jane is a naturalist, photographer and nature writer living in Dorset. Her work has appeared in books, anthologies and blogs for charities such as The Wildlife Trusts and the International Bee Research Association. When she’s not exploring Dorset’s lanes and countryside she can be found lying on her stomach watching insects in her garden. Jane’s…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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Why is Natural England so reluctant to disclose a piece of science?
I’ve been asking Natural England and the BTO to send me a copy of a 2018 BTO research report. The BTO say they can’t because NE won’t let them (see my email to BTO, their reply to me and my response to them) and Natural England just say I can’t have it (see here). I…
Response from Natural England on ‘secret’ BTO report
At the same time as I contacted the BTO about a report that they produced for Natural England (see my email to BTO, their reply to me and my response to them) I also asked Natural England for a copy of the said report. It’s a report from 2018, it’s referenced in Natural England guidance…
An interesting paper
This paper is interesting but it draws an odd policy conclusion in the abstract even though not in the discussion. It suggests that high levels of generalist predators may be a problem for ground-nesting birds in particular (not earth-shattering) but then in the abstract says ‘If we value our ground‐nesting bird species, consideration needs to…
Press release – Rewilding Britain
New network to spearhead rapid rewilding across Britain A new project spearheading rapid and massively upscaled rewilding will be launched by Rewilding Britain later this year, to tackle the nature and climate emergencies, and help boost green recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. With nature faring worse in the UK than in most other countries, and…
Please be friendly to the World Land Trust
As the chair of trustees of the World Land Trust I’m keen that as many people as possible support the work of this small but highly effective conservation charity. But also as chair, I get a closer look inside the organisation than most, and my admiration for the small UK team, our partners in organisations…
Swifts – counting the days
I’ve seen Swifts on an unbroken run of 84 days this year since 1 May (and on one early date of 19 April). All of those days, bar one last week when we were away in Scotland, were in the skies above our home. I am pretty sure that this has been a very good…
Guest blog – Imagining the uplands by Ben MacDonald
Ben Macdonald is a conservation writer and television producer. The paperback of his book Rebirding is now available from £8.70 here. Twitter: @Rebirding1 Imagine that you want to upgrade your car. You walk into a showroom. There are three models available – all with various degrees of rust. The showman explains at great length that…