The summer and autumn months bring Mackerel shoals close inshore around much of our coastline. They are like miniature tuna and roam the seas in hungry packs looking for baitfish, snapping voraciously at anything that moves – even a brief pause for reflection would result in the loss of a meal to the other fish…
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
The Moorland Imbalance (5)
In their little booklet, the GWCT address five areas that they say are commonly-heard criticisms of driven grouse shooting. This week I’ll deal with each of them. GWCT say that a commonly-heard criticism is that ‘Heather burning on grouse moors increases flooding’ and attempt to sidestep this in the same way that they attempted to…
The Moorland Imbalance (4)
In their little booklet, the GWCT address five areas that they say are commonly heard criticisms of driven grouse shooting. This week I’ll deal with each of them. In their booklet GWCT state that a commonly-heard criticism is that ‘This rich man’s hobby damages the environment and society‘ and their defence is that there are…
Another amazing Hen Harrier image from Gordon Yates
Just superb! A superb image of superb birds. Who’d want to kill these? And it reminded me of ‘Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.’.
The Moorland Imbalance (3)
In their little booklet, the GWCT address five areas that they say are commonly-heard criticisms of driven grouse shooting. This week I’ll deal with each of them. The GWCT correctly identify this as an area of criticism ‘There is illegal persecution of raptors by grouse moor keepers‘ but go on to use the ‘few bad…
Heather Trust seeks new Director
Simon Thorp is standing down as Director of the Heather Trust after doing the job for 15 years. The fact that most readers of this blog won’t have heard of the Heather Trust is a testament to the fact that the Heather Trust hasn’t been anything like as daft as many other landownery shootingish uplandful…
Use of lead shot as an Operation Likely to Damage
A response to an information request to Natural England. So, which upland SSSIs on blanket bogs ought to have ‘Use of lead shot’ as an OLD? Any ideas?
Scotland’s gun-toting legal system
It’s always difficult to imagine exactly how the other half live – it’s even more difficult for most of us to imagine how most of the establishment live. I came across an interesting article the other day which, based on Freedom of Information requests, documents the arsenal of weapons held by members of the Scottish…
The Moorland Imbalance (2)
In their little booklet, the GWCT address five areas that they say are commonly-heard criticisms of driven grouse shooting. This week I’ll deal with each of them. GWCT say that it is claimed that ‘Heather burning contributes to the release of greenhouse gases because it release carbon dioxide‘ and attempt to rebut this by quoting…
Win a copy of Behind More Binoculars
Behind More Binoculars will be published on or soon after 16 October – apparently the books are arriving on a slow boat from China – how exciting! – so that’s a bit less than a month away. But I’ll give you the chance to win a copy signed by the authors, Keith Betton and…