An estimated 726,000 migrating songbirds were illegally trapped and killed on the island of Cyprus last autumn, a new report from BirdLife Cyprus has revealed. Species including Blackcaps, Redstarts, Whitethroats and Willow Warblers were found to have been caught using mist nets and limesticks within the survey area, which includes land around British military bases….
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
BTO Conference
The annual BTO conference took place in Northampton on Saturday – and it was all very good. The venue was good, the food was good, the venue was close to the railway and bus stations and the talks were good and were enjoyed by a good audience of 300 or so. I mean it about…
Sunday book review – Where to Watch Wildlife in Britain by Low-carbon Transport by Megan Shersby, Heather Devey, Rebecca Gibson and Dan Rouse
This book has a laudable aim, to wit to nudge us to travel less in cars, but it’s quite a big ambition in a country with poor public transport, and for a leisure activity where some of the best places are out of town and somewhat remote. But here you will find a variety of…
Sunday book review – The Pied Woodpeckers by Gerard Gorman
Following on from The Wryneck (published 2022, click here for my review) and The Green Woodpecker (published 2023, click here for my review) woodpecker expert and enthusiast, Gerard Gorman, brings you a volume which deals with five black and white woodpeckers (Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted, Great Spotted, Syrian, and White-backed), two of which occur in…
Sunday book review – CNHS70 edited by Sarah Manning
This is an excellent book produced by a local natural history society to celebrate its 70 years of existence. It takes 70 local species and tells the reader interesting things about them. We meet the Red Squirrels of Mersea Island, the coastal Brent Goose, Essex Skipper, Fisher’s Estuarine Moth, the Abberton Weevil, Giant Puffball, a…
Guest blog – Don’t Look Around You by Barry Kemp
I am recently retired but have spent the last 20 years working as an ecologist, primarily in the conservation of our native reptile and amphibian species. During this time I had to deal with many housing developers and the message I and other ecologists were always trying to get across was that our biodiversity was…
RSPB – Mass death of seabirds across UK and Europe following winter storms underlines fragility of populations
Mass death of seabirds across UK and Europe following winter storms underlines fragility of populations The RSPB is calling for the urgent nationwide delivery of actions to support seabirds following the reported deaths of hundreds of Puffins, Guillemots and other species, with potentially thousands of birds affected across the UK and Europe. Seabirds have been…
Sunday book review – Love is a Toad by Lucy Lapwing
The author of this book, Lucy, is a friend and colleague with whom I’ve worked at Wild Justice and on other projects and I was nervous about whether I would get on with this book. After all, she is a young person, the same age as my kids, and young people see the world in…
Why Hen Harriers don’t prosper in the Forest of Bowland and what could be done about it
Introduction: This blog was prompted by reading the Draft Management Plan for the Forest of Bowland National Landscape (the new name for the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). I have written several earlier versions of this blog and electronically ripped them up and put them in the bin. This is where I…
More or Less nonsense
The BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less is, more or less, right up my street because it is about numbers and statistics and their use and misuse and quite often about logic and public argument and the absence of the former from the latter. If I’m in the car and it’s on the radio…