This blog follows those of Tuesday and Wednesday in publishing the RSPB Chair’s response to 10 questions I posed. Here are the RSPB’s replies to questions 7-10. My questions are bold, followed by Sir Andrew Cahn’s responses in blue and my comments in green. How many foxes were killed on RSPB nature reserves in each…
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
RSPB replies to my open letter (2)
This blog follows yesterday’s in publishing the RSPB Chair’s response Yesterday Qs1-4, today Qs5-6) to my impertinent questions. This series will complete (Qs7-10) tomorrow. My questions are bold, followed by Sir Andrew Cahn’s responses in blue and my comments in green. 5. I find that almost every RSPB communication I receive is trying to get…
RSPB replies to my open letter (1)
I recently wrote to the RSPB’s new Chair of Council, Sir Andrew Cahn, with a list of 10 questions about what the RSPB is up to these days – click here. I received a response on Friday and here I post the RSPB’s answers to the first four of my questions with more to follow…
Sunday book review – Protected Species and Biodiversity by Tim Reed
This is a handbook and I think it will be a very useful handbook for local authority planners and ecologists who want to do a good job for nature. It is not a book to read for pleasure but that’s simply because it’s a book to read for information and knowledge. For example, Chapter 5’s…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 31 by John Page
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John Page was born in the West Riding, a proud Yorkshireman and was taught to play cricket left-handed “’cos it flummoxes t’ bowler, and buggers up t’ field.” He went to university in London and Leeds, and enjoyed (most of the time) attempting to teach young people that there’s a big wide world beyond the…
RSPB press release – Slender-billed Curlew considered extinct
Global extinction of a bird from mainland Europe and the Mediterranean confirmed by scientists This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The last irrefutable sighting of the Slender-billed Curlew was in February 1995 in Morocco. This new study is a stark warning of the need to…
Sunday book review – The Tree Atlas by Matthew Collins with Thomas Rutter
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This is a lovely book – beautiful trees, photographed well (it helps that they don’t run around I guess) and in gorgeous surroundings. Fifty types of tree from across the world are selected and that simple idea works very well. We are given portraits of individual trees and landscapes clothed in their masses as well…
Sunday book review – The Joy of Birdwatching (various authors)
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Not intended, I’m sure, as a sequel to the 1972 classic, The Joy of Sex, but potentially a book to get the pulse racing if you are keen to see lots of species of bird all over the world. I’ve seen c1400 or so, a great many of them whilst working, which means there are…
RSPB makes a statement
Yesterday, the RSPB made a statement about its ‘comprehensive review of operations’ – click here. I’ve pasted the full statement, in blue, below as it’s not that easy to find on the RSPB website. It’s certainly not front-page news. A few comments on these 1149 words: I was itching to edit it into something more closely…
Guest blog – Life on The Skerries by David Higgins
David Higgins works in conservation. He has lived and worked in the Falkland Islands, St Helena Island, India, The Skerries, the Yorkshire Dales, the North Pennines and now the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. He loves islands especially seabird colonies, where he enjoys his main passion of wildlife photography. My colleague, Filip, takes a full-frontal crap…