Indications have been growing for some months that the RSPB is in trouble but it’s no use hiding it any more. Many organisations go through what seem like interminable reviews, and RSPB has had its share in the past decade or so, but this one is pretty serious. The jobs of hundreds of staff have…
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
Guest blogs for this site – guidance
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This blog has published over 400 guest posts since May 2011. Do you recognise any of these names; John Burton, Peter Cairns, Ian Carter, Andy Clements, Ian Coghill, Mary Colwell, Kerri ni Dochartaigh, David Fursdon, Derek Gow, Jeremy Greenwood, Miles King, John Lawton, Dara McAnulty, Lucy McRobert, Peter Marren, Stephen Moss, Andrew Painting, Alick Simmons,…
Illegal use of lead ammunition to shoot Mallards continues
This paper looks at lead pellets retrieved from shot Mallards in the 2020/21 shooting season at a time long after the use of lead ammunition to shoot ducks was made illegal in England (similar but slightly different rules apply in other UK nations). Most Mallards in the study were shot with lead ie they were…
Guest blog – Viewers May Find Scenes in This Nature Programme Upsetting by Beth Richardson
Beth is a Sussex-based nature writer who has enjoyed writing for websites, local newspapers and monthly regional and charity magazines. She has recently completed an MA in nature and travel writing at Bath Spa University and hopes to use her new skills and experience in purpose-led PR to write about conservation and rewilding. Warning: Viewers…
English Hen Harrier numbers slump
Natural England has published, in more detail than in previous years (click here), the numbers of Hen Harriers nesting in England – they are down this year. Numbers in 2024 are lower than in 2023 and 2022 and only slightly higher than in 2021. This year puts an end to a run of years of…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 33 by Anne Caldwell and Nick MacKinnon
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Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 33 by Anne Caldwell and Nick MacKinnon Anne Caldwell is a freelance writer and education specialist, based in Hebden Bridge. She has worked for the National Association for Writers in Education, and currently lectures for the Open University as an as well as working as an Advisory Fellow for the…
Sunday book review – The Migration Ecology of Birds (2nd edition) by Ian Newton
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This second edition of a book first published in 2008 is a masterwork (but its price is beyond most individual readers and so it will mostly be read in academic libraries). I have the first edition on my shelves and a .pdf of this second edition in my inbox. This fully revised edition (rewritten with…
Sunday book review – Change Everything by Natalie Bennett
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I’ve had the .pdf of this book for many months and not got around to reading it until now. I wish I had got to it sooner as it is a good read and a good advert for green politics. I did turn to the last chapter, Greenism: A Complete Political Philosophy to start and…
Sunday book review – Robin Prytherch A Life with Buzzards edited by Lyndon Roberts
Robin Prytherch died in 2021 and we lost a stalwart of British and Bristol ornithology. As I grew up in Bristol as a teenage birder Robin Prytherch was a leading light in the Bristol Ornithological Club, he had designed its logo on the club’s founding in 1966 and the subject was a Pied-billed Grebe which…
Sunday book review – What The Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales
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Reviewed by Jonathan Wallace. Seen from space we are the Blue Planet. About 70% of the planet’s surface is covered by oceans and these waters are fundamental to life on Earth. The oceans were the cradle in which life began and they remain the home for vast numbers of species. They are also vital…