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

I’ll be Doggered if I know (1)

Mark 6 Comments

Today you get two blogs for the price of none – this one’s about being at sea (or they might both be about being at sea…) Last Thursday Defra issued a press release about the Dogger Bank being given extra protection under the EU Habitats Regulations as a Special Area for Conservation (SAC)(but it’s proposed…

The war on biodiversity loss, cuts and bank voles

Mark 5 Comments

Last week the biodiversity (and many other things) Minister, Richard Benyon, was quoted on the matter of the recovering bittern population. The Minister said “To see a species that was once extinct in the UK rise to a population of over one hundred is a real achievement.  This is largely down to the work of the…

Even a dull walk is worth having

Mark 2 Comments

Just a few thoughts from a walk around my local patch at Stanwick Lakes in east Northants yesterday morning; not many blackberries on the bushes this year – but lots of apples in the garden a few speckled wood butterflies were almost the only butterflies compared with just under a fortnight ago warblers were very…

No longer a passenger on our planet

Mark 5 Comments

Thursday was the 97th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon – once the commonest bird in the world and now a distant memory. The Independent newspaper published an article by me on the subject (click here) and regular readers will know I have a bit of a thing about passenger pigeons (click here,…

Boomtime for bitterns

Mark 14 Comments

I’m delighted that the RSPB and Natural England have been able to announce that booming bitterns have passed the 100 mark – and reached 104 booming males in fact. Given that in 1997 (incidentally, the year before I became the RSPB’s Conservation Director) there were only 11 booming males this is a remarkable and very welcome recovery.  And let’s…