Social Distancing Week 14. Ruby-tailed Wasp. Paul writes: sometimes being confined to the garden to watch insects isn’t a hardship. I’ve been joyfully following these beautiful wasps for the past week and they should be around until the end of July. Ruby-tailed Wasps are one of the most colourful insects you are likely to see….
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
Sunday book review – Imperial Mud by James Boyce
This book goes straight into my shortlist of books of the year for 2020: no doubt about it. I wish I had written this book but since I didn’t, I’m very glad that someone else did so that I could read it. I guess I am sounding enthusuastic about it – I am. It’s a…
Tim Melling – Woodlark
Tim writes: Woodlark is a rarer cousin of Skylark that inhabits heathlands and young forestry plantations mainly in the south. They like light, sandy, free-draining soils too, and lots of bare ground where they feed. So despite the name, they are not a woodland bird. Though unlike Skylark, Woodlark does perch in trees. A bit…
Cut and paste, and add more errors: wildlife reporting in the Daily Mail
The Daily Mail online have simply cut and pasted the Moorland Association’s news release – with all its errors and misrepresentations – see here. We are supposed to think that a dozen pairs of Hen Harriers on English grouse moors (some of which are not grouse moors) is a ‘high’ number whereas there should be…
Saturday cartoons from Ralph Underhill
Two topical wildlife cartoons from Ralph this week; And the cover of the Scottish Gamekeeping Party’s manifesto would be:
Joke announcement from Moorland Association
The Moorland Association is trying to big up the Hen Harrier breeding season already – and it’s only late June! If you shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched you certainly shouldn’t count your Hen Harriers before they are fledged (naturally, in the wild) and even then you shouldn’t count on them surviving. Here is…
It might be you, or me, but actually it’s Mairi.
I’ve been checking my garden, and the local patches of open space with grass, to see whether amongst all the Starlings and their noisy hungry young, there might be a Rose-coloured Starling (aka Rosy Pastor). And so it was with some envy that I received this photo of two Rose-coloured Starlings in my inbox from…
Scottish gamekeeping party?
Reports of a new political party, the Scottish Gamekeeping Party seem to be exaggerated. That’s a shame. I had been planning to join and had jotted down a few points for the manifesto; free pints and chasers in all pubs for those wearing ridiculous amounts of tweed health warnings on all farmed meat ‘WARNING: does…
Press release – UK now values nature more by National Trust
UK values nature more as a result of lockdown, according to summer solstice poll A third of adults are more interested in nature as a result of lockdown More than half say they plan to make a habit of spending time in nature ‘when things go back to normal’ Just over two thirds of adults…
Guest blog – Afterwards… by Louise Bacon
I used to be a biochemist studying human immune system malfunction whilst being a part-time naturalist and conservationist. Then I converted to being an environmental data geek, which is what I do part of the time in a vague attempt to pay the bills. I have been a birder since childhood, and am now the…