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
We need to think about Giles
Giles Bradshaw has commented on this blog over 600 times and many of those comments have been on the subject of the Hunting Act – a subject on which I don’t recall ever writing a blog (although you can find a comment on it in Inglorious pp106-07). A long time ago, I did publish a…
Splat!
A long time ago, the RSPB tried to persuade car drivers, lorry drivers etc to put a square patch of plastic on the front of their cars and send it in to us to assess the number of splatted insects on it. The ‘splatometer’ was a one-summer wonder but sometimes I wish we had persevered…
The environmental case for Brexit?
I asked my MP, a leading member of the Vote Leave group, to point me in the direction of a well-argued environmental case for voting for exit from the EU. Mr Pursglove was kind enough to point me in the direction of the Briefing Room on the Vote Leave website. Is that it? Really? In…
The Different Whitethroat
Hunting Solutions – the abuse continues
You may remember that the tweet above by @huntingsolution and its retweet by Nicholas Soames MP caused quite a storm last week. Hunting Solutions are still at it too – posting a variety of nasty tweets about me over the last few days. And you can see Hunting Solutions have some other shooting chums. …
M&S getting a pasting on social media #spiritofsummer
I’ve not seen the industry-leading Code of Practice that underpins M&S’s belief that they can sell grouse meat this year – has anyone? I’ve not heard a thing from M&S – has anyone? I’m not convinced that I should be shopping at M&S – are you?
Got a quid and like sheep? Contact the NT.
National Trust offers iconic £1m coastal farm for just a pound a year The keys to a £1m farm and the future of a precious landscape could be in your hands for just a pound a year, as long as you’ve a passion for nature, people, and sheep. Last year the National Trust stepped…
It’s all written down here
I’m accused of various things, mostly by people who don’t know me, but a really good thing about writing a blog and writing articles, and writing books, is that my words are there, out in the open for anyone to read. So you can make your own minds up. About 100,000 of those words, on…
Thank you Greens!
The Green Party of England and Wales is the only UK political party, as far as I am aware, which supports a ban of driven grouse shooting. And this has not just been through passive support, the current party leader, Natalie Bennett, amongst others, has spoken out in social media on this subject (also see…