The government is about to spend a pittance on a very serious problem – but it should be celebrated as a start. Our trees are under threat from imported diseases – perhaps from some diseases that stand a better chance of becoming established under new climate scenarios. So Defra and the (unreconstructed) Forestry Commission have…
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 tale of three warblers
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I find that I carry British Birds around with me for ages before I get around to reading it and so this blog is about the September issue which contains the report of the Rare Breeding Bird Panel. The contrasting fortunes of three warblers struck me as I read through the text; Cetti’s, Savi’s and…
How social is your charity?
A fairly recent ranking of how UK charities use social media makes interesting reading. There is a league table – we all love league tables – which puts the Royal Airforces Association as the 100th charity and Cancer Research as number one. On this list the National Trust is #7, the RSPB is #13, WWF…
Chaos theory – what happens when a butterfly doesn’t flap its wing?
The government and opposition argue about how to manage the economy. They agree that cuts are needed (although the size of the cuts is at issue) but the route to growth is in dispute. If you cut and cut will the economy stagnate? Many small businesses, including small NGOs, are worrying about how public spending…
That explains it
Back in the spring, while I was driving across the USA, when I got to the eastern side of South Dakota, to Sioux Falls, I found that I was about half way across the continent. And over the next few days it became obvious that there were some new birds turning up. The eastern meadowlarks…