“Beardies” breeding boom: success celebrated on World Wetlands Day On World Wetlands Day – 2nd February 2025 – the RSPB is celebrating a remarkable year of breeding success for the Bearded Tit on RSPB nature reserves, with more than 500 chicks raised in 2024 at RSPB Blacktoft Sands – more than double the success rate…
Author: Mark
New petition about windfarms on peat soils
Press release from ‘Stronger together to stop Calderdale Wind Farm’: PARLIAMENTARY PETITION LAUNCHED TODAY CALLS FOR A BAN ON BUILDING WIND FARMS ON PROTECTED PEATLAND Today sees the launch of a petition that calls on Parliament to amend onshore wind planning regulations by banning wind farms on protected peatland in England. 100,000 signatures will…
Bird flu in wild birds in The Netherlands
This is from SOVON in The Netherlands https://www.sovon.nl/actueel/nieuwsberichten/opnieuw-veel-wilde-vogels-getroffen-door-vogelgriep: ‘The current outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, which has been causing increased bird mortality in the Netherlands since November, is spreading rapidly. Barnacle geese in the north of the Netherlands are particularly hard hit, but the virus has also been detected in other species and…
Big Garden Birdwatch
I did it – did you? I saw some birds: House Sparrow (5), Long-tailed Tit (4), Blackbird (3), Blue Tit (3), Dunnock (2), Coal Tit (2), Great Tit (2), Collared Dove (1), Robin (1) and Goldfinch (1). Several species I expected were missing: Starling, Jackdaw, Woodpigeon… I have entered the data – have you?
Sunday book review – Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds by Barbara Allen
This book brings together a selection of extinct species, many that have been pushed to global extinction in living memory or at least recently enough to have touched human culture, and tells their stories. In some cases they are given a voice to tell their own stories. It’s a compilation of 30 species (or…