‘Be careful what you wish for…’ is a phrase that any campaigner finds often crops up. It is almost always uttered by someone diametrically opposed to whatever it is that you are seeking. Rarely (I won’t say never) does it come from cautious people on your own side of debate and that tells you something….
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
Chough – Tim Melling
Tim writes: in Britain, Choughs are rather rare, and have likely always been so as there are few English folk names for them. There are many ancient references to Chough but that is because this was the name originally applied to the Jackdaw. Shakespeare refers to Choughs in seven of his plays but at this…
Sunday book review – Grassland plants of the British and Irish lowlands by Peter Stroh et al.
I’m no botanist, so for all I know this book could be riddled with awful errors, but it is a lovely, lovely book. In a 400-page book, 300 of the pages are given over to about 100 species accounts; each with a distribution map, a photograph of the species, a photograph of the habitat and…
Cuckoo – Tim Melling
Tim writes: I thought this was quite a dramatic flight shot of a Cuckoo flying past like a paper dart. I took this one in the Peak District when there were two males chasing each other on the moors. Cuckoos are suffering a massive population nosedive in Britain, but particularly those in England. All British…
Fake news (6) by Diogenes
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Wildlife groups call for end to burning of upland bogs
Twenty six Wildlife and Countryside Link members recently wrote to DEFRA calling for an end to the burning of upland bogs (primarily for intensive grouse shooting). Click here for the letter and click here for the accompanying press release.
NFU – there’s a useful course…
‘The NFU reacted angrily…’ is a common occurrence – try searching for it online and you’ll find a lot of examples. Today’s example, at least as reported on Today, is the NFU reaction to Ian Boyd’s suggestion that the future British countryside will have more hedges and trees and fewer grazing animals in it. This…
Peak District bird surveys
Some bird surveys in the Peak District have been published. Well, actually, that’s not quite true; some rather obviously selective analyses of some bird surveys done in the Peak District have been promoted but not properly published. See here, here and here. Despite the fact that there is some celebratory social media coverage of these…
Garden birds October 2019
October has been a good month for birds with four new species for the garden list for the year – two of which were garden lifers! All four species were recorded on 22 or 23 October during a period of good weather when sitting in the garden with a cup of tea was not just…