I’m looking forward to attending the Big Story event on Friday at the Natural History Museum. It’s a live, staged adaptation of the Natural Histories radio series and of the book reviewed here a while ago. With Rory Bremner, Tamsin Greig, and a host of stuffed animals (?) involved, it’s bound to be a good…
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
Guest blog – Protecting the knackered by Jean-Luc Solandt
Jean-Luc Solandt is a marine biologist struggling to get out of a policy expert. He worked on coral reef ecology for 15 years, providing diving survey data for the creation of Marine Protected Areas. He’s been working in the UK at the Marine Conservation Society for over 13 years on developing networks of MPAs, making…
Oscar Dewhurst – Steller’s Jay
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Oscar writes: While hiking around Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park we came across this gorgeous Steller’s Jay feeding in some conifer trees. Fortunately it didn’t seem bothered by me trying to creep up on it, and happily carried on feeding, letting me take some photos of it. Nikon D800, Nikon 600mm f/4 AF-S…
Sunday book review – The Man who made things out of Trees by Robert Penn
I liked this book. It’s about Ash trees and what you can make out of their wood. It’s a simple enough idea but it takes the author, Robert Penn, to many parts of the UK , Europe and America and he meets a variety of interesting craftsmen on his journeys. Baseball bats, cricket stumps and…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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Mark writes: have you been watching the Attenborough series, The Hunt, on BBC1 on Sunday evenings? Top notch, I’d say. A great mixture of large cuddly killers and small invertebrate killers. I’ll be watching tomorrow.
Stody Estate fine confirmed
The Rural Payments Agency has just (30 minutes ago) confirmed the amount of penalty imposed on the Stody Estate – it’s €263,308.10 (which according to my currency converter app is £192,160.63). This differs from the figure estimated by raptorpersecutionscotland by a fair margin – perhaps they will be blogging about this later in the day…
Guest blog – Looking with skill by Emily Adams
Dr Emily Adams is a researcher, writer and manager who currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland, and works part-time for the British Association of Nature Conservationists (BANC). She has a PhD in Geography (studying beekeeping knowledge and engagement with science and policy), and a background in biology and conservation. She runs a small silk painting company,…
And by the way…
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…our e-petition to get a debate on driven grouse shooting passed 24,000 signatures yesterday. Another milestone – and thank you to all who have helped get there. This was, by far, the slowest additional 1,000 signatures of the lot – but I don’t think that means that the e-petition has lost steam – there are…
Small footnote to sad story.
The story of Bowland Betty is one of a Hen Harrier satellite-tagged in Bowland in 2011 and then travelling around much of upland Britain before being found dead on a Yorkshire grouse moor in June 2012. Bowland Betty was shot, not necessarily on the Swinton Estate on which she was found, but most probably nearby,…
A pertinent quote
One of the many good things about writing a blog is that one learns things from the wise comments of one’s readers. This quote was posted by reader, Northern Diver (and I am very grateful to him or her) on my blog Too little, too late about NGO feebleness: ‘You have two babies very…