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 – Ponds, Pools and Puddles by Jeremy Biggs and Penny Williams

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – Ponds, Pools and Puddles by Jeremy Biggs and Penny Williams

Every new New Naturalist is worth a look and this one is a hefty 614 pages of information, illustrations, photographs and graphs about smallish waterbodies, written by two acknowledged experts. It has to be said that the New Naturalists have regained their ability to produce well-illustrated books with clear colour photographs and fairly clear graphs…

Sunday book review – The Vanishing Mew Gull by Ray Reedman

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Vanishing Mew Gull by Ray Reedman

I have to admire the author for bringing together a taxonomic list of 1100 birds found in the Western Palearctic (about 1 in 10 of the world’s birds) and explaining the origins of their English vernacular names and scientific names. If that is the book you want, then this is the book for you. I…

Sunday book review – The Little Book of Beetles by Arthur V. Evans

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Little Book of Beetles by Arthur V. Evans

This book is one of a series  of Little Books which are little books but they pack a big punch. They will remind many readers of Observer books because they are a similar size, but don’t let the small dimensions make you think that these books are lightweights. Not at all. This volume (I will…

Sunday book review – The Little Book of Trees by Herman Shugart and Peter White

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Little Book of Trees by Herman Shugart and Peter White

This book is one of a series  of Little Books which are little books but they pack a big punch. They will remind many readers of Observer books because they are a similar size, but don’t let the small dimensions make you think that these books are lightweights. Not at all. This volume (I will…

Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 54 by Nick MacKinnon

Mark 8 Comments

Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…

Guest blog – Badger killing: is there a better way? Alick Simmons

Mark 12 Comments

Alick Simmons is a veterinarian, naturalist and photographer.  He lives in Somerset. He has written seven previous guest blogs here – click here. His Twitter handle: @alicksimmons One element of the government’s 2013-2038 strategy  – click here – to eliminate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) from the cattle herd (in England) is widespread, officially-sanctioned, privately-funded badger killing….

Sunday book review – Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie

This is a very good book and a much needed antidote to the confident prognostications of doom and gloom. Sometimes I think it is slightly over optimistic, because the future does strike me as pretty worrying, but without hope for a better, or at least less apocalyptic, future, then there is little incentive to take…

Sunday book review – Another England by Caroline Lucas

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – Another England by Caroline Lucas

  It’s difficult being English, and Caroline Lucas has written a helpful book for the English to find their way and for the Irish, Welsh and Scots to cut us all a bit of slack. Being English is not necessarily being a racist skinhead with a cross of St George tattoo.  What is the left…

Sunday book review – The Little Book of Butterflies by Andrei and Alexandra Sourakov

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Little Book of Butterflies by Andrei and Alexandra Sourakov

This book is one of a series  of Little Books which are little books but they pack a big punch. They will remind many readers of Observer books because they are a similar size, but don’t let the small dimensions make you think that these books are lightweights. Not at all. This volume (I will…

Being a conservation investor, 3 – the National Trust brushes me off

Mark 6 Comments

My book, Reflections, suggests that we should all see ourselves as investors in wildlife conservation when we spend our money on donations, merchandise or memberships with wildlife non-governmental organisations – and see this recent blog post. I wrote to The National Trust on 16 March asking them for information that I would consider when making…