Please could Northumberland National Park name, or at least give a reference, for the 20% of Britain’s spiders that will disappear if upland heather burning were to cease. I’m pretty sure that the one above isn’t one of them. But I was wondering, surely the lowlands are the place for spiders anyway – like they…
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
Richard Ali writes…badly!
BASC Chief Executive, Richard Ali, wrote to the BBC yesterday (presumably to BBC Wildlife magazine). It can’t really be a letter that BASC expects to be published because it looks thrown together, is badly argued (though is very argumentative), is long and rambling, and has a split infinitive in its first line. Ali is complaining…
Countryfile 2
Yesterday’s blog on the item on heather burning on Sunday’s Countryfile clearly chimed with a lot of people. It was read by over 5000 folk yesterday evening and attracted a lot of comments both here and on social media. Controlled burning to stop wildfires has been likened to throwing away all your money to prevent…
Dear Countryfile
Dear Countryfile I’m pretty sure I am the type of person you think you are appealing to – interested in nature and the countryside – but I rarely watch you because you have such a blatant agenda of trying to paint a small subset of those of us who live in the countryside as…
17,000
I’ve been away birding for a few days and am thrilled to see that our e-petition is still steaming ahead: 17,000 signatures reached in three weeks! Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey was the first constituency to reach 100 signatures with Ross, Skye and Lochaber not far behind. Here are the top ten constituencies so far:…
I’m reading…
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I’m reading Chris Packham’s book – out in May – Fingers in the Sparkle Jar. I hope to review it next week. But, wow!
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Talking
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It seems a long time ago that I spoke to the Devon Birds society and the Somerset Ornithological Society – but both were great evenings. Thank you! Next week it is back to Devon and the RSPB Exeter group on Tuesday, then east Surrey RSPB group on Wednesday and RSPB central London group on Thursday!
Spring
Since coming back from Israel I’ve been getting in some local birding: at Stanwick Lakes, at Rainham Marshes, at Titchwell, at Weeting Heath and at Lakenheath Fen. Migration is not advanced at these places as it is (was) at Eilat but I have notched up a few UK spring migrants, namely Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler,…
Champions of the Flyway 2016 – blog 7
A few final thoughts on the Champions of the Flyway event: It was a great experience and a privilege to be there – I’ll remember the birds (some of them) for a long time, but it will be the people I’ll remember for ever. Seeing scores of Israeli children taking part in the bird race…