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

Sunday Book review – The Worshipful Companies by Stuart Medland

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Reviewed by Ian Carter This landscape format book is the second in a series on Norfolk wildlife by the same author. It deals with the Norfolk coast and combines photographs of wildlife (mostly birds) and poems, with a short accompanying text. The ‘worshipful companies’ bit is his comparison of the different bird species with medieval…

Tim Melling – Siberian Weasel

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Tim writes: This is a Siberian Weasel (Mustela sibirica) photographed at night by torchlight in the forests at Labahe, Sichuan in China.  It was at an altitude of c2000m above sea level.  This is the one and only individual that I have seen, and judging by the scarcity of wild photographs, it appears that they…

Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (11) by Ian Carter.

Mark Comments Off on Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (11) by Ian Carter.

Continued from last Saturday Down on a remote stretch of rocky coastline, away from the woodland I had walked through, the feel of the place was very different. The magic of the woodland on the slopes above was closed off from view by a shielding canopy of leaves, and the wood itself was dwarfed by…

Let them eat grouse – or not…

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New figures show only 0.25% of Scots eat grouse more than once or twice a year yet almost a fifth of Scotland is used for shooting the gamebirds. https://revive.scot/revive-revive-coalition-challenges-grouse-consumption-in-scotland/ That’s the finding of a report from Revive.

Guest blog – Plastic shotgun cartridges by Caroline Bedell of BASC

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BASC appointed Caroline Bedell as its executive director of conservation in October last year. Caroline has more than 25 years’ experience of the rural economy and environment. With a degree in rural land management, she qualified as a rural practice chartered surveyor. Caroline spent the first 10 years of her career advising and managing rural…

Save the Blue-throated Hillstar

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This stunning hummingbird is found on a few remote mountaintops in southern Ecuador, but mining corporations have gained the rights to mine its habitat to extract metals. However, with your help, the World Land Trust, working with its partner Naturaleza y Cultura Ecuador (NCE), will be able to extend a Water Protection Area by 70,000 acres…

Progress is a bit slow

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There are now 21 MPs who have added their names to Caroline Lucas’s Early Day Motion on lead ammunition. The system seems to be working rather slowly – I know of a couple of MPs who have told constituents that they had signed and it was days later that their names appeared. No matter. Welcome…

Tony Juniper for NE Chair

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So the rumours were right. Tony Juniper is heading to be, almost certainly, the new Chair of Natural England. Congratulations to him – he is a star of the environment movement – and fingers crossed he, with Marian Spain, can make a difference at what is a sadly failing organisation. And, it has to be…

Guest blog – New Year, New Moon Bird by Kerri ni Dochartaigh

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Kerri ní Dochartaigh is a writer who grew up during the Troubles that ravaged Ireland. She lives in a very northwesterly part of the island, where the sky is grey and unbearably beautiful. She writes about nature, literature, place, beauty, grieving and healing. She writes at her kitchen table with the back door open; even…