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

John Burton Memorial Fund

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Please consider donating to the John Burton Memorial Fund – set up to support causes about which John was particuarly keen in his last years.

RSPB press release – pesticides

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Lack of research, weak regulation and a mix of over 150 pesticides – all the ingredients needed for a harmful cocktail of chemicals used in our countryside Every year over 150 different pesticides are used across the UK’s countryside in a combined quantity that could cover all UK farmland over ten times every year but there…

RSPB press release – Black-tailed Godwits

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Today (28 June) sees the final release of hand-raised black-tailed godwits as part of an emergency intervention which has thrown the critically endangered wetland bird a lifeline and helped increase its chances of survival. Data collected by a five year partnership between the RSPB and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) called Project Godwit, shows the…

Guest blog – Eyot Notes by Tim Reed

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Although an ornithologist by training, Tim Reed has a background in monitoring and data quality- starting with standardising management planning and data recording for the statutory sector, moving on to developing the widely-used Common Standards site condition model. After a long period introducing peer-reviewable data and biodiversity and ecosystem reporting models in big corporates around…

Press release – Wild Moors

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Peatland restoration value hits £470m, outpacing grouse shooting as an income source for landowners A new analysis has shown that trading carbon by restoring upland peatlands could be worth more than four times the economic value of grouse shooting. Amidst reports that grouse moors may face another uncertain season, new market analysis released by Terra…

Wainwright prize longlists announced

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https://wainwrightprize.com/news/james-cropper-wainwright-prize-2022-longlists-announced/     Here are three interesting lists of books which have been compiled by these three interesting lists of judges.   The 2022 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing longlist is: Otherlands: A World in the Making, Dr Thomas Halliday (Allen Lane) 12 Birds to Save Your Life: Nature’s Lessons in Happiness, Charlie Corbett (Penguin) Goshawk Summer:…

What you think of the new RSPB logo

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I asked what you thought of the new RSPB logo and this is how you responded: Those figures ought to please the RSPB – a majority of people are positive and very few hate it. And let’s be clear, everyone will get used to it. This poll wasn’t a carefully selected representative sample of the…

Sunday book review – Rhythms of Nature by Ian Carter

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Ian Carter has written often on this blog (see this collection of blogs on Wild Food, and this other collection about getting away from it all, as well as on rewilding, fox hunting and Hen Harrier reintroductions) and I have reviewed his previous books Human Nature, and Red Kite’s Year.  Given that, it would be…