On a recent trip to London, Henry (you didn’t think he’d gone away did you?) looked in to Rules restaurant. Now Rules has a very strange attitude to customer care (see here, here, here) and although there was initial friendliness from some of the waiting staff someone looking more senior started closing curtains and…
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
‘Class war’ against driven grouse shooting led by rural Tories
Those who oppose the excesses of field sports are often written off as ‘lefties’ and ‘townies’ who know nothing about the countryside, as opposed to ‘real country people’ who do. I’ve never seen anything to back up this oft-heard statement, and in another life I used to point out to people voicing it that the…
Data for the next post (at 1pm)
ENGLAND ALDERSHOT CON 19 ENGLAND ALDRIDGE-BROWNHILLS CON 8 ENGLAND ALTRINCHAM AND SALE WEST CON 11 ENGLAND AMBER VALLEY CON 25 ENGLAND ARUNDEL & SOUTH DOWNS CON 26 ENGLAND ASHFIELD LAB 30 ENGLAND ASHFORD CON 19 ENGLAND ASHTON UNDER LYNE LAB 10 ENGLAND AYLESBURY CON 23 ENGLAND BANBURY CON 21 ENGLAND BARKING LAB 11 ENGLAND BARNSLEY…
By-catch
I don’t say much about the animal welfare aspects of grouse moor management – they are well-covered by others and they aren’t my main gripe with the whole system of land management (does that sound hard-hearted?). But these photos (which you should find upsetting) of a Mountain Hare leveret caught in a fenn trap touched…
Keep an eye on this disease
Bulgy-eye is a growing problem it seems on grouse moors in the north of England (see here, here and here). We hear that one grouse moor in the Peak District has cancelled all its grouse shooting days for this year because of an outbreak. It’s not totally surprising is it? When you are engineering unnaturally…
Sunday book review – Rainbow Dust by Peter Marren
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This is, for me, the very best natural history book I have read this year. Now perhaps I ought to mention that I am dining with its author later in the week but we’ll each be paying our own way so I haven’t been bought. It is a delight – and that is in a…
Marching on
James Marchington has a go at me in something called ‘ishoot’. Apparently I am having a mid-life crisis and should have run off with my secretary on a Harley Davidson instead of campaigning about the ills of grouse shooting. Thanks for the advice James. There was a time when James wrote rather good pieces…
New grouse butts going in in the Forest of Bowland
It’s traditional you know. Photographs taken in late July. Ban driven grouse shooting.
Don’t forget to look at You Forgot the …
Spoofs I’m sure, two new social media accounts have appeared on Facebook and Twitter related to You Forgot the… Keep an eye on them.
Going shopping this morning (2)?
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And maybe you would be interested in this week’s New Scientist… …with this article about grouse shooting Ban driven grouse shooting.