Sheffield: Venue: Devonshire Green, Sheffield City Centre, S3 7SW Start: 11am Speakers: Natalie Bennett, Iolo Williams, Mark Avery, Ross Cameron For more info: Facebook Rainham Marshes: Venue: RSPB Rainham Marshes, Purfleet, RM19 1SZ Start: 11am Speakers: Chris Packham, Mark Thomas (RSPB), Rob Sheldon (BAWC) For more info: Facebook Tayside and Central Scotland: Venue:…
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
National Meadow Day soundscape
Press release from People Need Nature: The charity People Need Nature celebrates National Meadow Day today by releasing a specially created soundscape evoking the lost Wildflower Meadows of England. 97% of all wildflower hay meadows in England have been lost since 1945. Just a few thousand hectares remain. People Need Nature Trustee Keith Datchler had…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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Pay up, Countryside Alliance!
I have permission to use this image of a Red Grouse by Tim Melling. The Countryside Alliance does not. Tim Melling is wondering where he should send his invoice please? He tells me that £500 would be an appropriate sum and that he’d like it to be a donation to Birders Against Wildlife Crime, perhaps…
Hen Harrier Day Sheffield, 5 August
Good news! Sheffield Environment is organising a Hen Harrier Day event in central Sheffield on Saturday 5 August. A big ‘Thank you!’ to them. I’ll be there, and at an event at Boat of Garten the next day. It wouldn’t be Hen Harrier day without a visit to the Peak District area. It’s a great…
Seriously rattled – and rightly
In a long rant the Countryside Alliance shows just how rattled it is by the challenges to driven grouse shooting. It’s all the usual stuff, in fact it’s quite a useful refresher course in the Alliance’s lack of solid arguments on the subject. But it’s interesting to think about why the grouse shooting folk have…
Another review of Remarkable Birds
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Reviews seem to be like buses – two have come along together. Jeremy Mynott in the Times Literary Supplement reviews Remarkable Birds and The Meaning of Birds by Simon Barnes. Here are some of the nice things he says about Remarkable Birds: ‘Packed with all manner of interesting facts, expertly presented and all tending to…
UK Hen Harrier survey results – what they say (5)
Hanky for Mr Stokes!
Tweet, tweet
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On p274 of Inglorious I pointed out that the grouse shooters are rather outgunned on social media, and I also wrote that it might not last that long. Well, I think both remarks are still true. Of course, there are many more, relevant Twitter accounts than just these seven, many people never go near Twitter…
Bl**dy Badgers!
I was on an authors’ panel at a National Badger Week event in Wytham Wood on Tuesday evening. It was great fun – apart from the Badgers. We were chaired and facilitated by Charlie Moores (leftmost), and we were Dom Dyer, Hugh Warwick, Caspar Henderson and myself. We chatted about writing, about nature and…