I have two BBS squares which I survey in the spring, and so I am doing two lots of English Winter Bird Survey. The images above and below give you some idea of how unexciting the farmland is in this particular square. The birds were a little bit dull too – not many species and…
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
Waitrose you are rubbish!
I wrote to Waitrose on 26 November and they haven’t been able to come up with a response in all that time – just this … Dear Dr Avery Please accept my apologies on my behalf my colleague for incorrectly addressing you. I’ve asked our technical team if they have anything further to add and…
Press release from Wildlife and Countryside link
Press release from Wildlife and Countryside Link: Clean Air Strategy: progress for wildlife and people on ammonia – the ‘poor cousin’ of air pollution Twelve nature charities, including Plantlife, RSPB and Friends of the Earth, have welcomed new regulations to cut ammonia emissions announced in the Clean Air Strategy today. This move is vital and…
Paul Leyland – Green Tiger Beetle
Paul writes: Green Tiger Beetles (Cicindela campestris), with their elegant long legs, look as though they’re built for speed. They are one of the fastest beetles and can run at up to 60cm per second. They combine this with a quick low flight, so often when I find one I end up dashing along a…
A nice way to start the year
Comments Off on A nice way to start the year
This was nice – even though I’m not entirely sure what it means! I’m listed as #8 in the Colour of Money, Triodos Bank, Sustainable 100 for the first week of 2019. It’s a measure of Twitter influence using the kred index. This is not something to be that bothered about really, but the 7…
Sunday book review – Noor by Andy Rouse and Aditya Singh
Comments Off on Sunday book review – Noor by Andy Rouse and Aditya Singh
I’ve never seen a Tiger in the wild and I probably never will. But this book introduces the reader to one tigress, Noor, and her family, and the place she lives, Ranthambhore National Park. This is a feast of images and a pleasure to hold in one’s hands and turn the pages. Aren’t Tigers amazing?…
Tim Melling – Hume’s Ground Tit
Tim writes: This bird is a lot more interesting than it looks. It was originally called Hume’s Ground-pecker as it uses its long beak to peck the ground. Later it was thought to be a Ground-Jay, and the smallest member of the crow family, being about the size of a sparrow. But DNA molecular sequencing…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (7) by Ian Carter.
Continued from last Saturday My potential destination for a spell of immersion in nature was, inevitably, chosen from the comfort of an armchair, aided by implausible online images of sun-drenched, white-sand beaches, and idyllic descriptions. The obvious next step, before launching headlong into the unknown, was a dose of realism. I needed to go there…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
You reckon?
RaptorPersecutionUK wrote about this letter in the Shooting Gazette recently (see here). Mr Davis’s main point, that shooting organisations need to get together and make a plan of attack (an interesting choice of words), just isn’t going to happen any more than it does at the moment. I’d say that the shooting organisations do quite…