Gary Burgess posted a comment on this blog on 18 February on a rather old blog and I thought that few would notice what he had written and so I offered him the chance of a Guest Blog to air his views more prominently. I’m really glad that Gary took up the offer but I…
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
NIAs again
Nature is everywhere, it’s all around us and it is in trouble in many places around us. When government was looking for areas to qualify as Nature Improvement Areas it had plenty of places from which to choose – 76 proposals came forward for the £7.5m funding that was available for just 12 sites. Those…
Nature Improvement Areas
Nature Improvement Areas are a new idea that came out of the report by Prof Sir John Lawton‘s group in 2010. From its strapped resources Defra has found £7.5m to invest in a slightly different type of nature conservation initiative – an area based, Big Society approach. No that isn’t a typo – a paltry…
It might be spring
My last two visits to Stanwick Lakes have been very spring-like, even if they were both in late February. Reed buntings were singing, if you can call that a song, everywhere, and skylarks, song thrushes and dunnocks were belting out their songs too. I heard Cetti’s warblers for the first time in quite a while….
Wake up and do it George!
This is funny – I’ve played it several times for the chuckle it brings to my lips. Play it, have a laugh and then email the Chancellor so that he might wake up to the importance of wildlife in our lives. I’d be interested to know whether you get a respsonse from your MP like…