Sedge Warbler and Reed Warbler are a little bit like Blackcap and Garden Warbler – not that they look like those species, or sound like those species, but that they are similar to each other in song and one (in this case the Sedge Warbler) usually gets back to the UK a good week or…
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 week on…
Last week: This week: It’s still an utterly beautiful yet terrifying curve. In a week it has increased from 48,000 cases to 84,000 cases. The first case in the UK was in early February, about nine weeks ago. Exactly the same data on a log scale, a week ago: And on a log scale, now:…
Guest blog – Cambs Bird Club Easter Monday bird race by Louise Bacon
Today is Cambridgeshire Bird Club’s Easter Monday lockdown bird race. Objective, 12 hours of recording from your home, with up to one hour allowed out, on foot. Our house being not in the least competitive (2 birders – oh Ok, we are…) we have different lists and different strategies for this. I started with my…
Guest blog – My Lockdown by Paul Irving
Paul Irving is a retired scientist and ecologist. Involved in raptors and raptor protection in Northern England for over 30 years, especially Hen Harriers and Merlins. A Bird Ringer since the early seventies, other interests include just about anything to do with wildlife, photography (of wildlife), fishing, reading and Native Americans. Worked and lived in…
Paul Leyland – Tapered Drone Fly
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Social Distancing Week 4. Tapered Drone Fly. This is the most visible insect in my garden at the moment. It is a hoverfly, which mimics a drone Honey bee (Apis mellifera). The male Tapered Drone Fly (Eristalis pertinax) is fiercely territorial and is busy staking out its territory. It can be heard buzzing and seen…
Bird song (23) – Garden Warbler
I was relieved to find that Tim Melling (whose images grace these ‘song’ blogs) had photographed a Garden Warbler because not many photographers bother with this species; as Tim writes, its ‘distinguishing feature is that it has no distinguishing features’. The specific name borin apparently comes from a belief that this bird had a lot…
Bird song (22) – Black Redstart
The Black Redstart is a common breeding bird in much of continental Europe and it often nests in towns and villages. It, like the more familiar Common Redstart, is a hole-nester. Common Redstarts nest in holes in trees whereas Black Redstarts often nest in holes in building and walls. In the UK Black Redstarts are…
Easter eggs?
This nest box, just outside our conservatory, had Blue Tits nesting in it in 2016, and Tree Bumblebees in 2017, and nothing in 2018 and 2019, but Blue Tits are back this year. They’ve been carrying huge beakfuls of moss and a few feathers into the nestbox for days. I guess the female has just…
Press release – Chris Packham and Leigh Day
Chris Packham announces appeal of HS2 decision Environmental campaigner Chris Packham CBE has announced that he is seeking permission to appeal the decision by the High Court to dismiss his judicial review of the government’s go-ahead on HS2. The High Court decided on Friday 3 April 2020 that it would not grant permission for a…
Tim Melling – Golden Pheasant in the wild
Tim writes: most people will be familiar with Golden Pheasant as an aviary bird, or perhaps even as a naturalised escapee in Britain. But this is a wild, wary male in its natural habitat at Tangjiahe in China. This one had been caught out in the open and was dashing for the cover of a…