Is it going to be one of those occasional winters when Waxwings delight us with their presence along the east coast of Britain, across much of Scotland and maybe even into some central and western areas? There have been quite a lot seen, although I haven’t heard of any really massive flocks. But when there…
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
Dear Mr Double
Dear Mr Double I am writing as the petitioner of the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting which was debated in Westminster Hall last week. As a member of the Petitions Committee you were given the job of leading the debate. I need to tell you that your behaviour was unacceptable. I write to put…
Rory Stewart – this one is in your constituency
Rory Stewart has moved on from Defra but his legacy of inactivity on wildlife crime lives on and its impacts are manifest in his own constituency. A case of dead birds coming home to roost? I didn’t have any takers for my 100/1 bet that Rowan died of natural causes. It’s hardly surprising. He couldn’t…
From the Guardian
Grouse negligence ‘…the grouse-shooting debate revealed some MPs’ enduring contempt for the masses. An orchestrated procession of tame Tories waxed lyrical about the joys of wild shooting.’ ‘Charles Walker smeared the petitioner, conservationist Mark Avery‘ ‘E-petitions are supposed to reboot parliamentary democracy but, on the evidence of this farce, they are another kick in its…
Spurn – have your say
If you have a view on the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s plans for a new visitor centre at Spurn then you have the rest of the week to respond. I say ‘if’, but it is clear that many of you have – and on both sides of the argument. If you do have a view then…
More driving and more thinking
I drove to North Wales on Wednesday and drove back on Thursday, and then I drove to Essex on Friday to talk to the Essex Birdwatching Society and then on to Hertfordshire on Friday night where on Saturday I was on an authors’ panel at a Badger Trust conference. So in four days I met…
Julie Williams to succeed Martin Warren
Martin Warren‘s successor as Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation will be Julie Williams.
Planet Earth 2
There is just the one planet Earth – and it is a fantastically amazing place. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Last night’s opening programme in the new Attenborough series was breathtaking in its beauty – ‘that’s where I live’ we all should have been shouting. ‘I love that place!’. ‘What can I do…
Oscar Dewhurst – Hoatzin
Oscar writes: Our last 2 days in Peru were spent at the Manu Learning Centre, run by the Crees foundation. Here we spent one afternoon at a small lake and swamp area, where we saw many birds, including these Hoatzins. They are an oddity in the bird world, eating leaves and young birds possessing a…
Seriously good offer
My book about the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, A Message from Martha, is still available in paperback but will soon go out of print in hardback (jacket above). So I have snapped up most of the last hardbacks and can offer them to you at around the price you will pay for the paperback…