I stopped the car in a pleasant valley in West Wales last Monday and listened to Start the Week which had a very environmental content with Robert Macfarlane plugging his new book, Is a River Alive?, lawyer Monica Feria-Tinta talking about protecting habitats and plugging her book, A Barrister for the Earth, and Patrick Galbraith…
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
Carl Jones – saver of species
Carl Jones has a Kodiak Bear in his living room along with a couple of Giant Tortoises and many other animals, paintings and books. Outside there is a pair of Andean Condors and some feisty Striated Caracaras. If you heard Carl on Desert Island Discs recently – click here – then this won’t surprise you…
Six years in the garden – on this date (give or take a day)
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Six years, for two trees/bushes, photographed on the same date. First the Lilac – lots of Hairy-footed Flower Bees this year.
Storm
I wrote a favourable review about this book – click here – and I now see that the book has stirred up an interesting strong response from Right to Roam – click here. It’s difficult for a reader to choose sides in a dispute like this as one rarely knows the ins and outs of…
RSPB press release – Oldest Oystercatchers
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UK’s oldest known Oystercatchers discovered on England’s East Coast Wetlands Two record-breaking Oystercatchers have been found on England’s East Coast Wetlands, setting new records as the oldest of their kind in the UK. A new national record of 41 years and 8 months was beaten within weeks by a second bird confirmed as 43…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 38 by Kate Haslegrave
Kate is a photographer and has lived in Haworth for the past 20 years. She has been walking up on the moors for the past 10 years or so and one thing she has come to learn is that no two days out on the moors are ever the same. She has been blogging…
RSPB press release – White-faced Darter reintroduction
Rare dragonfly introduced into a hidden corner of Cumbria The introduction of the rare White-faced Darter dragonfly begins this week, at RSPB Campfield Marsh in Cumbria. The species has declined significantly in England due to habitat loss and other factors and is now found in only a few locations. The introduction involves translocating larvae from…
Guest blog – The Great Beaver Betrayal by Tom Bowser
Tom Bowser is the owner of Argaty, a working farm based on the Braes of Doune in central Scotland, which aims to produce food in an environmentally sensitive manner and to make a home for nature. Tom is author of A Sky Full of Kites: a rewilding story (reviewed on this blog) and the forthcoming…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – On Land and Water by Sheena Jolley and D.J. O’Sullivan
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This book melds the poetry of the late D.J. O’Sullivan with the photographic images of Sheena Jolley – it’s a very successful and satisfying combination. O’Sullivan died in 1993 and, I have to confess, his name meant nothing to me but I learn he was a lighthouse keeper with an eye for wildlife and a…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – Clouds by Edward Graham
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This book’s title makes it sound like a field guide to clouds, and to some extent it is, but, what a field guide! The illustrations are by the likes of Constable, Doré, Turner, Monet, Courbet and many others. But it really is about clouds as the author is an atmospheric scientist and former editor-in-chief of…