Whether it be Brexit or throwing missiles around the northern Pacific there comes a time when people have to sit down and talk things through. So might it be for driven grouse shooting? I have to say that there has been so much talking that it is difficult to imagine quite what would come out…
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
Grouse shooters’ secret report with secret funding set up by PR company
Curiouser and curiouser! The story so far; Ian Botham claims that there is work done by Newcastle and Durham Universities which shows that there are birds on grouse moors, but Newcastle University researchers won’t release the report as the analysis isn’t completed and the report was just for the funders of the study. Who were…
Guest blog – Lesser Spotted Woodpecker network by Ken and Linda Smith
Ken and Linda Smith are both retired and now live in Chichester, West Sussex having moved from Hertfordshire last year. Before their retirements, Linda was a senior civil servant with Defra and Ken a research scientist with the RSPB. Ken has always been heavily involved with local birding and recording through the Herts Bird Club,…
Lead faces new threat of ban
I’ve known of this issue working its way through the grindingly slow processes of the EU for quite a while and was wondering when the heads-in-the-sand shooters in the UK might notice that the world is changing around them. The European Chemicals Agency is looking at the use of lead ammunition with a view to…
Any NE news on gull cull? Bowland Gull Cull 4
Following this, this and this, I have asked Natural England this: On 10 July I asked ‘Has NE consented culling of Lesser Black-backed Gull in the Bowland Fells SSSI this year?’ On 9 August, after turning this into an EIR request (Request 3929), you used Regulation 12 (5)(B) – Administration of Justice to justify…
Guest blog – by Birding for All
Accessibility at nature reserves matters, be it for wheelchair-using wildlife enthusiasts; parents trying to introduce their small children to the wonders of nature; or just to make life easier for us all as we age as walking, can, become more of an issue. Let’s face it none of us know what is around the corner…
Tom Kitchin and Saturday Kitchen Live
I’m quite surprised by how many readers of this blog are (apparently) devotees of Saturday Kitchen Live – personally I’d never heard of it until this weekend. But they had the chef Tom Kitchin (I bet he gets even more remarks about nominative determinism than I do) preparing a grouse, black pudding and something else…
Grouse shooters secret survey with secret funders
The grouse shooting industry’s practice of quoting unpublished and unavailable, ie secret, reports in the media in ways that suit them but cannot be scrutinised by others, let alone evaluated, and certainly not criticised, is becoming a regular feature of the Inglorious 12th. The most recent example has been, and still is, some research by…
Countryside Alliance Awards #ruraloscars
I’ve nominated the Bowland Brewery for the Countryside Alliance Awards – modestly described by the Countryside Alliance as the rural oscars. I am a fairly regular purchaser of Bowland Brewery’s Hen Harrier ale and I like it as a beer and as an idea – my beer drinking gives money to the RSPB’s Hen Harrier work….
Vishal Jadhav – Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher
Vishal writes: This is a male Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher. I always refer to this bird as the Colour Bomb of the Western Ghats. This bird becomes extremely active and vocal during the monsoons when the semi evergreen forests of the Ghats really turn into a dark maze as the cloud cover thickens and the undergrowth…