I was in two minds about whether to say yes to the publisher about sending me this book as I’m no expert on marine issues – but obviously I’m interested. The three things that persuaded me were (in no particular order); the cover (looks serious and beautiful), the words ‘past and present’ in the subtitle…
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 Painted Lady by Elvira Werkman and Maxime Beck
This is a smallish book, Ladybird book in size, of 80 pages, over 20 of which are occupied by Maxime Beck’s attractive illustrations. The text, by Elvira Werkman, covers a lot of ground very clearly in such a short space. I read most of the book, with pleasure, in one sitting. There is a useful…
Sunday book review – Call of the Kingfisher by Nick Penny
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This book is set a few miles from where I live – down the River Nene a few miles – around Oundle. The author makes regular walks, through the calendar year, and covers quite a lot of ground beside the river near his home. He sees much of the local Kingfishers, but much more besides….
Sunday book review – Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman et al.
This book takes the Japanese view of many mini-seasons of a few days and fits it to the natural rhythms of UK wildlife. It’s close to an approach tried before by Lev Parikian (Light Rains Sometimes Fall – reviewed here) but in my view, it’s done even more successfully here. The four authors took the…
Sunday book review – Earth by Chris Packham and Andrew Cohen
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This is the book of the series – and I loved the 5-episode TV series. But the TV series moved around the world and moved us back in time through hundreds of millions of years and explored our home through a liberal use of moving computer generated images. All that moving – it’s what television…
Sunday book review – The Purple Sandpiper by Ron Summers
This is a wonderful book and it will undoubtedly be one of my top-10 books of the year for 2023. It is a self-published account of studies of this species, many of them led or enabled by the book’s author. And he did all this alongside his actual work being a research scientist in various…
Nah George, it doesn’t add up. More on LIARgate.
I would rarely differ from George Monbiot but I will here because I think he is probably wrong, and I am probably right. In his piece in The Guardian yesterday George essentially writes what people were saying a week ago – that the RSPB caved in to political pressure and one of their trustees, with…
The week when sewage hit the fan
There has been a certain amount of interest in the government’s proposals to opt out of protections for water bodies this week. Quite a lot of the interest has been because of a tweet (see above) put out by the RSPB, or part of the RSPB, or at least someone in the RSPB, but we’ll…
Guest blog – Across The Pond: How ecological conservation differs between the US and the UK by Melusine Velde
Mélusine Velde is a franco-american ecologist and flower enthusiast from Chicago, Illinois. During her studies at the University of Chicago and Imperial College London, she supplemented her classroom studies with extensive exploration of the parks and trails around her campuses, and most importantly, the plants and animals that inhabit them. Her interests and passions in…
Guest blog – The SEA EAGLE: was its extinction justified? by John A. Love
Born and bred in Inverness, with a zoology degree from Aberdeen, I managed the reintroduction of Sea Eagles from Norway to Rum 1975 to 1985, for NCC, and remain on the UK Project Team as an independent. Moved to South Uist as Area Officer for SNH/NatureScot covering Uist, Barra and St Kilda 1992-2006. Retired to…