Tim writes: This butterfly is declining right across its European range and Britain has not bucked the trend. This individual was photographed at Finglandrigg National Nature Reserve in North Cumbria. It typically occurs on marshy grassland where its foodplant Devil’s-bit Scabious occurs, but some colonies occur on chalk downland in the south. The plant…
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
An Unreliable History of Birdwatching (31) by Paul Thomas
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To buy Paul Thomas’s original cartoon portrait of Chris Packham (signed by them both) from the cartoon below, click here.
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Good film
I wrote about this film back in May 2016 when I saw it at The Barbican. Quite a lot of it has stuck in my mind ever since. And now it is going on tour in the UK to: Nottingham tomorrow Sat 28 Oct, Oswestry Tues 31 Oct, Liverpool Sun 26 Nov, Aldeburgh Sun 3 Dec,…
Dr Coffey’s reading list (12)
Dr Therese Coffey is the junior minister at Defra. When Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting passes 10,000 signatures (and it stands at over 9800) then Dr Coffey will need to sign off a government response. It looks to me as though ‘drafting a response’ will be in Dr Coffey’s civil…
Signs of progress
It’s sometimes difficult to tell how well the message that grouse moor management is environmentally unsustainable, economically harmful and in any case underpinned by wildlife crime is spreading. It also feels like there is a bit of a feeling of ‘ what’s the point?’ around the current e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. That’s a…
Local – bird records
This is just a short addendum to my blogs on a local planning matter which would involve building 10 intensive broiler houses on farmland about six miles from where I live (see my blogs here, here and here) and Tim Reed’s guest blog which was on the more general issues surrounding the quality of data…
Dr Coffey’s reading list (11)
Dr Therese Coffey is the junior minister at Defra. When Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting passes 10,000 signatures (and it now stands at over 9700) then Dr Coffey will need to sign off a government response. In order that she does not make Defra look even more foolish than they…
Make your choices
The Birdwatch Birders’ Choice Awards are now open for your votes – and there are some very difficult choices too. Who will be Conservation Hero? Will it be Helen Glover and Steve Backshall who raised £300,000 for the World Land Trust (of which I am a trustee)? Or my friend Ruth Peacey who has supported…
Wild Food (9) – Brown Trout by Ian Carter
I often think of these as the freshwater equivalent of Mackerel: they are stunningly pretty fish; they snatch at any morsel of food in front of them, making them remarkably easy to catch; they are a doddle to cook and taste fantastic; and they can only be caught from spring to autumn (in this case…