RSPB Scotland launches UK’s first eagle nest camera feed at Loch Garten Nature Centre In what has been hailed as a first for the UK, a new live camera feed at RSPB Scotland’s Loch Garten Nature Centre is giving visitors an up-close look at Scotland’s largest bird of prey. A pair of white-tailed eagles, Shona…
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
Sunday book review – Elegy for a River by Tom Moorhouse.
This book was published last year but I missed it, and it is now, since Thursday, out in paperback so that’s my excuse to review it. I like it. It’s a book about Water Voles and their conservation and recovery, and about a biologist, the author, who has worked on that task for over a…
Sunday book review – The Birds are our Friends by Yessengali Raushanov
Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Birds are our Friends by Yessengali Raushanov
This is an interesting book – a translation of a book by the Kazakh poet Yessengali Raushanov who died last year. The book is organised by species, over 30 species of bird, many of which are familiar to a UK audience, with a few extra bird-related essays included too. One learns something of the folklore,…
Is free-shooting of Badgers humane?
This afternoon the Wild Justice petition calling for an end to Badger shooting will be ‘debated’ in Westminster Hall by backbench MPs and will receive statements from Shadow and actual DEFRA ministers. No doubt the debate will wander all over the place with MPs spouting quite a lot of nonsense that makes them look foolish…
New scientific paper on whether Badger culls work or not
On Friday a new scientific analysis of the effectiveness of Badger culls on reducing bovine tuberculosis in cattle was published. I knew this paper was coming and knew that it would be greeted with acclaim by those who oppose the cull and derision by those who support it, and that has largely been true. The…
Guest blog – Do you remember the Barn Owl? by Barbara Lorna Hudson
Barbara Lorna Hudson grew up on a farm in Cornwall, where there was a ruined farmhouse with barn owls in residence. After studying at Newnham College, Cambridge and the Universities of Chicago and Newcastle, she worked as a social worker for several years before becoming a social work lecturer at the London School of Economics…
Sunday book review – What Climate Justice Means by Elizabeth Cripps
Comments Off on Sunday book review – What Climate Justice Means by Elizabeth Cripps
I like books that have clear titles, ones which tell you what they are about, provided the title actually does tell you what the book is about. And this one does. If you can’t work out what this book is about from the title then I can’t help you. But I can tell you that…
Wild Justice Badger crowdfunder
Comments Off on Wild Justice Badger crowdfunder
Wild Justice is raising money to challenge the lawfulness of a proposed cull of Badgers in Northern Ireland. We’ve got together with the Northern Ireland Badger Group. At nearly £24k in 10 days that’s pretty good going, and there is more cash arriving every day that we can transfer across, but there’s still a long…
A letter to my MP
Dear Mr Pursglove Just a quick note to say that I’d like to draw your attention to a debate on a successful petition that will take place in Westminster Hall at 4.30pm on Monday 14 March. It’s title is Ban the shooting of badgers immediately and it received over 106,000 signatures and so it has…
British Birds, March 2022
A cracking issue of British Birds this month (as almost every month) with an attractive Common Scoter on the cover alerting the reader to a fascinating paper (Metcalf, Bradnum, Dunning and Lees) inside describing overland nocturnal migration of this duck across Britain revealed partly by the new nocmig technology. Aren’t birds brilliant? It’s almost time…