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 – It’s bee-hind you! by Teresa Verney-Brookes

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I have spent many years in the conservation field and have worked for various national organisations including The Wildlife Trust and more recently as Education Officer for the RSPB. I now run my own Outdoor Education /Forest School business called Green-Trees. I feel passionately about the need connect children with the wonders of the wildlife…

Passenger Pigeon day

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Yesterday was a really nice day. I did a radio interview early in the morning on the fact that it was the exact centenary of the death of Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon on Earth, and then had breakfast in the garden before taking my ‘new’ son-in-law and daughter to the airport to set off…

A response, of a kind, from Defra

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Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting passed 16,800 signatures yesterday. Thank you to all who have signed. Yesterday also saw Defra’s response to the e-petition – earned when the 10,000th person signed the e-petition (but it has taken a while). I’m not much impressed by the response. Are you? I’ll tell you why not…

The centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon

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It’s surely worth pausing today, around 1730 UK time would be appropriate (1230 Ohio time), to remember that we drove the most numerous bird in the world, the Passenger Pigeon, to extinction exactly a century ago. Listen to, and watch, me being interviewed about Passenger Pigeons by Martha Kearny on the BBC World at One…

Oscar Dewhurst – Kittiwakes

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Oscar writes: While I was at Minsmere the East Scrape was frequented by Kittiwakes. At one point one landed just behind another, before putting its head up between the tail feathers of the other. Nikon D800, Nikon 600mm f4 AFS-II

Sunday book review – A Sparrowhawk’s Lament by David Cobham

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This review first appeared in the September Birdwatch and I am grateful to them for permission to reproduce it here (subscribe to Birdwatch here). This book is about the 15 species of raptor which breed in Britain – each gets a chapter. The author assesses whether their populations are doing well or badly (many, of…

Passenger Pigeon centenary looms

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Here’s a piece by me in today’s Guardian about the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. They slightly mangled the ending (Grrrr!) So here’s the original version  of the penultimate paragraph. ‘And I can’t see that we would be worse off if the US had kept the Passenger Pigeon and more of its forests, and the…

When a butterfly flaps its wings…

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In a way, this post follows on from Pip Howard’s Guest Blog this morning about once-alive invertebrates encased in perspex,  except this post concerns actually-alive butterflies sold as extras for celebrations such as weddings etc. A reader of this blog alerted me to this and wrote that ‘I was at a wedding recently and was…