Natural England could learn a few lessons from the Forest Enterprise. I asked Forest Enterprise England for some information on correspondence between themselves and Defra on 21 November and received a reply on 29 November with no fuss at all. Thank you FC! You’ll notice that the email below has the subject line ‘Mark Avery’s…
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
Home-Start – have you done due diligence on game meat?
The Grampian Moorland Group is supplying game to local branches of the charity Home-Start. Home-Start is a ‘Family support charity, supporting families with a child under five, that helps parents build better lives for their children.‘. This may be happening elsewhere in the country too, for all I know. And for all I know great…
Findlay in Number 10
You must read this account of Findlay Wilde’s visit to Downing St to talk to Sir John Randall, the environment advisor to the Number 10 Policy Unit. Findlay is a good advocate and I’m sure that he and John got on well. I was fascinated by some of the remarks that John was happy for…
No comment never looks that good
My question to Defra 0n 21 November: What is the status of the complaint made by the RSPB and Ban the Burn campaigners of Hebden Bridge against the UK government and to the European Commission regarding management practices on grouse moors? When will Defra make a public comment on the case? Defra’s response to me…
Climate and UK birds
The focus on climate change in the SUKB report published today is a very useful stock-check. It has prompted me to go back and look at one of my ‘favourite’ books, published 10 years ago, A Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds by Rhys Green of the RSPB and Brian Huntley, Yvonne Collingham and Stephen…
Impacts of climate change on UK birds
The distribution, numbers and behaviour of birds in the UK are changing because of a changing climate according to a new report. The State of the UK’s Birds 2017 (SUKB) – the one-stop shop for all the latest results from bird surveys and monitoring studies – this year highlights how many of the UK’s species are already…
The first two months – more than 50 with more than 50 signatures
Gavin Gamble’s e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting keeps making significant progress. On 2 December – that’s two months in and four months to go – it passed 17, 200 signatures and now it’s over 17,600. Highlights: Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey passed 100 signatures. The number of constituencies with 50+ signatures has jumped from…
Blue Planet 2 – programme 6
Coasts – can’t go wrong with coasts – and they didn’t. Crabs were the stars! You don’t read those words very often. There were some great scenes on and just off beaches – turtles in warm waters and King Penguins in cold ones – and then there were all those sharks too. This episode felt…
It sure has…
A recent article in Shooting UK asks ‘Has commercial driven shooting reached a watershed?’ – it sure has! It’s an interesting read, it’s always interesting to see what others think about things that interest you, but my take would be a little different than the author’s. First, it’s a bit surprising that the author can’t bring…
Oscar Dewhurst – Beaver
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Oscar writes: while I was walking around Stanley Park in Vancouver, I got chatting to another photographer who mentioned that I had a good chance of seeing Beavers in one of the small pools towards the entrance. Later that evening, after a short wait, sure enough a family emerged from their den and treated me…