My car is in limping mode and the garage says it might cost a lot of money to get it fully back up to speed (literally). But after 254,000 miles, the last 190,000 of them in our care, it certainly doesn’t owe anyone anything. Given that we last put fuel in the car over two…
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 few things
I’m trying to write something for this blog about Curlew, but each time I try, I get in a mess. It’s because there is too much to write for one blog post and I can’t get it straight in my mind as to how to structure it. So you’ll have to wait – although until…
After…things I would like to be different (5)
The Westminster Petitions System I’m a keen supporter of the idea that an ordinary citizen can initiate a petition to parliament which, if supported by enough fellow citizens, then receives a response from government. This seems to me to be a modern manifestation of an ancient right which goes back to and beyond Magna Carta….
After…things I would like to be different (4)
A move away from meat eating. I’m nowhere near vegetarian, and even further away from being vegan, but my meat consumption is very low these days. Particularly these days because it’s summer – and I love salads – and because it tends to be when eating out that I am tempted into eating more meat…
Paul Leyland – Large Narcissus Fly
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Social Distancing Week 10. Large Narcissus Fly. Paul writes: I’ve started seeing this distinctive fly around the village in the last week. It will be a regular visitor to a lot of gardens at this time of year. The Large Narcissus Fly (Meredon equestris) is a hoverfly which is so named because its larvae develop…
Sunday book review – Europe’s Dragonflies by Dave Smallshire and Andy Swash
This photographic guide to Europe’s dragonflies is amazing, although WILDGuides have built up such a reputation for producing high quality books of this sort that it doesn’t come as a surprise really. But it is still amazing. Now, I have to confess that my knowledge of odonata is miniscule so the book could be riddled…
Tim Melling – Jack Snipe
Tim writes: I don’t consider myself to be a photographer. I’m a wildlife enthusiast who takes photographs of the things I see. So serious photographers will look with scorn at this photograph as being dull and lacking detail. But keen birdwatchers will (hopefully) be impressed knowing what a lucky shot this is because in my…
Stephen Halton – Wood Warbler
Stephen sent me this image of his watercolour of a Wood Warbler after I enthused about the bird in my series of blogs on bird song. It’s a lovely image, don’t you think? And it gives me the excuse, if any were needed, to reproduce Stephen’s poem about the bird’s habitat too, which first appeared…
After…things I would like to be different (3)
Sitting in my garden I now see and hear far fewer planes crossing the east Northants skies. Aside from Icelandic volcanoes, nothing has jolted our addiction to flying as effectively as a global pandemic. A tiny virus has done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation than all the good intentions of individuals and…
11 weeks to go… Hen Harrier Day 2020
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Eleven weeks tomorrow there will be an online Hen Harrier Day broadcast live over t’internet. I read in the Hen Harrier Day newsletter this week that planning is going well, and from what I’ve heard more directly there are some big plans and lots of people working very hard already. Why not sign up to…