Photo: Tim Melling When I arrived at Glapthorn Cow Pasture on Wednesday, Test Match Special was just starting: when I left after having brilliant views of three Black Hairstreak butterflies, England were only in the sixth over. It doesn’t take long to see butterflies if they are well behaved. I knew as soon as…
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
Another letter to my MP
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Dear Mr Pursglove Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 I am very concerned at the impacts of this piece of legislation on the ability of civil society to participate in the democratic process. You may have seen that over 50 charities wrote to all party members concerned about the ‘chilling…
Thank you M&S – that was quick!
Well, that was quick. Well done M&S!
M&S and grouse meat
There are various ways of contacting M&S which in theory might elucidate their plans for selling Red Grouse meat this coming year. The easiest is probably their live chat service which is where I started – and helpfully they send you an email of what was ‘said’. Here’s the transcript: [12:03:27] Mark Avery has joined…
M&S
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Dear M&S We do this every year… (2016, 2015, 2014) Please can you tell me whether you have any plans to sell grouse meat in your stores this year? I do hope not. Thank you.
I feel a bit bad about this…
The other day I was driving around the roads of east Northants and I saw two squashed Hedgehogs. Yuk!! But I felt pleased that I’d seen them because it showed that there were still hedgehogs here… But I felt bad about feeling good… But I was glad… But I was sorry too…
Letter to my MP
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Dear Mr Pursglove As this is the first time I have written to you since the general election last week, I must congratulate you on a personal level for holding your seat of Corby and east Northants (despite my and many others’ best attempts to get the vote out for Labour and Beth Miller). Given…
Tree Bumblebees
We seem to have Tree Bumblebees in our garden – in a nestbox that has held Blue Tits in the past. I came back from Spain to find the nestbox was full of bumblebees. They seem quite friendly critters – they don’t interfere with drinking Rioja in the evenings anything like as much as…
Concerns about the Lobbying Act – the letter
The Lobbying Act is really important and quite complicated so I’ll do my best to explain some things here. It’s worth saying upfront that I have spoken to various friends in NGOs about this issue and it is very clear that the Act is making many charities extremely nervous about speaking out about any…
Today fails to ask Defra Secretary questions on environmental protection
Michael Gove has just run rings around the Today programme (at 08:10, 2hours 10 mins into programme) in his first interview as Environment Secretary. He was asked about funding for farming and pointed out that he agreed with the Conservative election manifesto. That was hard! But he did say that he was meeting the NFU…