Congratulations to Andy Richardson and the shooting community for quickly reaching the 10,000 signatures milestone in their badly-worded and badly-argued e-petition to keep toxic lead ammunition. That is the way to do it – it’s effective campaigning, even though for an awful cause. My sincere congratulations to them (clearly BASC was involved and who knows…
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
I missed this – better late than never
It was just over a year ago, 9 November 2014, that the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (in Resolution 11.15) called on Parties to “Phase-out the use of lead ammunition across all habitats (wetland and terrestrial) with non-toxic alternatives within the next three years with Parties reporting to CMS…
Huffing and puffing in the post
In response to the call from the Labour Shadow Minister, Alex Cunningham, to get rid of lead ammunition the Countryside Alliance’s Tim Bonner huffs and puffs in the Huffington Post. In an article wittily called ‘Lead Ammunition – the Facts’ Bonner says very little of note. He says that the issue should be decided on…
Guest blog – Spurn developments by John Lawton
Prof Sir John Lawton FRS is a distinguished ecologist and is the chair of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1989, awarded a CBE in 1997 and knighted in 2005 for his contributions to ecological science. He has been awarded numerous other national and international science prizes. John…
Many reasons for a visit to Martin Mere
I’m looking forward to attending the NorthWest Birdwatching Festival on Saturday when I’m giving a talk. Apart from anything else, I might see some good birds. Martin Mere is always a good place to have a look at Tree Sparrows, maybe a Starling flock whirling around at dusk and all those things that go quack…
Lead ammunition – you choose
There are now two e-petitions on the subject of lead ammunition: one to ban it and one to keep it. Having failed to get Chris Packham sacked from the BBC, Andy Richardson now has put his name to an e-petition to keep lead ammunition. There can’t be many people who would want their name associated…
A sense of place
At the New Networks for Nature event there were lots of good bits. There was a bit where three people talked about Sense or Spirit of Place. One of the speakers was poet Andrew Forster who lives in the Lake District now, but used to live somewhere else, in Scotland. I guess that there were…
Stody fine
The raptorpersecutionscotland blog is on a roll at the moment and yesterday disclosed the fact that the Stody Estate has been fined, probably three quarters of its single farm payment, for the Buzzard killing on its land revealed by the conviction of its former gamekeeper Allen Lambert. This is excellent news and shows how the…
Climate plus one
Global temperatures are set to reach 1°C above pre-industrial levels this year (Daily Mail, Independent, BBC) and world leaders are going to Paris in a few weeks time to sort it out. Today the RSPB released an important report and some very interesting polling information. Let’s deal with the polling first. The polling suggests that…
Oscar Dewhurst – Clark’s Nutcracker
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Oscar writes: After our week in Yellowstone, we spent a few days staying near Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. One of my favourite birds there was the Clark’s Nutcracker, and in fact I saw several in the pine trees just outside the hotel rooms. One morning I spent an hour photographing this bird…