An update on bird flu

There’s a very good article in October Birdwatch by David Campbell – of course it doesn’t make happy reading but it covers the ground and the issues well, including some interesting international aspects. As the article says ‘…losses were catastrophic’. On Farming Today this morning (click here about 7 minutes into the programme) there was…

Guest blog – Saving Dead Wood (2) by Les Wallace

Who I am – Scottish with a fascination for wildlife from childhood – in lieu of formal qualifications (and not being able to flash them about!) – was on the 1990 International Youth Conservation Exchange to Hungary, was the 1993 winner of the BBC Wildlife Magazine ‘Realms of the Russian Bear’ competition and spent nearly…

New government, new threats to wildlife

There’s a new government in the UK and an almost completely new team in Defra, but they’ve already made their mark by making statements which, taken at face value, look like an attack on the legal protections that apply to sites, habitats and species and also the greener policies that are being developed for farming…

Bird flu – some comparisons between 2021 and 2022

This year and last: this time last year, from the end of July to the beginning of October, there were hardly any positive cases of bird flu in wild birds recorded by the government surveillance scheme. In 10 full weeks there were only three weeks with positive cases, though these were all Great Skuas, and…