Many of you are beginning to receive letters from your MPs about the expected debate on banning driven grouse shooting. Tomorrow’s blog post will give you some information for some ‘Firm briefing’ of your MP. Also, tomorrow evening I will post the ‘Star letter of the week’ from an MP to a constituent. I hope…
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 Bird Fair – some pictures with me in them
The world’s most-loved Hen Harrier gets all the glamour gigs but I enjoyed the Bird Fair too – I’ll give you some thoughts tomorrow. But here are some images with just a few words. I see that Simon Lester has his own version of the Q&A at the Bird Fair out on the GWCT website….
The BBC and driven grouse shooting
The week before last there was copious coverage of driven grouse shooting before, on and after the inglorious 12th in the media – quite a lot of that was on BBC channels. This post is about how the BBC handled it and whether or not they were fair. I’d give the BBC only 5 out…
How’s your day so far?
My day so far (before 0830): sent thank you emails to 30+ people who have written to their MP about driven grouse shooting went out to Stanwick Lakes and saw the Turnstone that has been there for a few days had breakfast, two slices of toast and marmite, in the garden saw a Holly Blue…
116,000+ signatures
We’ve passed 116,000 signatures and as I go to sleep we are close to 117,000. Woohoo!!! Here’s a list of all the constituencies over 350 signatures: Calder Valley 741 High Peak 538 Ross, Skye and Lochaber 493 Bristol West 485 Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey 459 Derbyshire Dales 450 Sheffield Central 429 Skipton and Ripon…
Henry at the Bird Fair – more
‘Beautiful plumage Jim!’ – says Henry to the man who commissioned Inglorious And then Henry gets in amongst the artists, starting with Keith Brockie, who knows his birds… …and on to Carry Akroyd… …and then to Darren Woodhead who knows a harrier when he sees one. Henry wanted to thank Lush boss, Mark Constantine for…
Leaflets – a massive thank you.
At the Bird Fair, over 11,000 leaflets were taken away for delivery around the country (certainly England and Wales). I’m grateful to those of you who will be walking the streets and delivering these leaflets over the next few weeks – thank you and every signature counts. I met karl (sic) and Dave at the…
Compare and contrast
Charles Moore in the Spectator, ‘It would be wearisome (not least because Matt Ridley’s piece last week set it all out so well) to go through how most such accusations about the killing of hen harriers are false, how hen harriers do better on kept moors than on unkept ones…‘ Prof Rhys Green and Brian Etheridge:…
Congratulations to SRSG
Comments Off on Congratulations to SRSG
The Scottish Raptor Study Group-led petition for better regulation of gamebird shooting closed at midnight last night at 7216 signatures – but there will be other paper signatures (some from the Bird Fair) that can be added to that total so we are looking at a 7500+ total. Well done! I hope that the Scottish…
You are wonderful – Firm Briefing 3 (update)
Yesterday, I spent most of my time responding to, and filing, emails from you lovely people saying that you had written to your MP. Thank you! Every time I thought I had dealt with the backlog built up over the Bird Fair weekend I looked again and there were some more emails. Thank you again!…