I hear that staff morale under the new interim Natural England CEO, Marian Spain, is rising. That’s good to hear. It might rise a little more if the report in Saturday’s The Times, that Tony Juniper might be NE’s new Chair, is true. It’s a difficult job but Tony might well be the person to…
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
GWCT plumbs new depths
Here are some quotes from a press release from Abzed’s Ian Gregory which was released yesterday morning: From: Ian Gregory <ig@abzed.com>Sent: 27 January 2019 09:58Subject: Official Figures Reveal RSPB’s “Increasing Failure” To Protect Endangered Birds Embargo 00.01 Monday 28 January 2019 Government data shows the RSPB is four times less successful with hen harriers…
Paul Leyland – Empis tessellata
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Paul writes: Empis tessellata is a common fly and can be seen throughout the UK, it belongs to the family Empidae, also known as Dagger Flies. The family is quite distinctive, typically with a small head combined with long body and legs. There are several similar species, Empis tessellata can be told from its black…
I’ve done my BGBW and it was fun!
Long-tailed Tit. Photo: Tim Melling I looked out between 9am and 10am to record the birds I saw in my garden. It’s a good ritual which brings hundreds of thousands of people together in a common activity and thinking about nature for a while each year. My records were as follows; species seen in chronological…
Big Garden Birdwatch anyone?
Great Tit. Photo: Tim Melling It’s the weekend for the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. I’ll be looking out of the window for an hour this morning to see what birds are using my garden. A Reed Bunting or a Blackcap would be quite exciting as I haven’t seen either in the garden yet in 2019…
Tim Melling – Himalayan Griffon
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Tim writes: The Himalayan Griffon (Gyps himalayensis) was split from the Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) as recently as 2000 based on DNA analysis. However, it differs markedly in appearance being much more contrastingly black and white below. They are pretty enormous, with a wingspan that can exceed 3m, and weigh up to 12kg. They breed…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (9) by Ian Carter.
Continued from last Saturday Walking out from the cottage one morning we came across a freshly dead sheep not far from the house, interrupting the feeding aspirations of a young Great Black-backed Gull and two Hooded Crows as we approached. It was so fresh, I half-expected it to struggle to its feet, but the eyes…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Ralph writes: ‘apologies for the even messier than usual toon, the train is very bumpy this evening and this is the best I could do’.
Burns night
Don’t be a ‘wee, sleekit, cowrin, timrous beestie‘ stand up for the environment and be a man (or woman) for ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ that‘. Burning of heather moorland for the pointless and destructive hobby of intensive grouse shooting is one type of Burns that we should not celebrate tonight. Heather burning damages…
Adam Watson 1930-2019
Adam Watson. Photo: Ronofcam, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7303182 Adam Watson died on Wednesday. We have lost one of the grand old men of UK ecology and a towering figure in upland ecology. From his doctoral thesis on the life cycle of the Ptarmigan through to his long-term monitoring of Mountain Hares, Adam Watson was a…