I apologise for the late posting of this little note but I have been collecting my Hen Harrier Day T-shirt. This time next week it will all be over. We’ll be becalmed in the day between ‘Hen Harrier Day’ and the ‘Inglorious 12th’. I have bought and tested a megaphone – it works! There aren’t…
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
No difference?
This Guest Blog is rather different. It’s about statistical analysis and written by a respected scientist, Professor Jeremy Greenwood. In his Guest Blog Professor Greenwood criticises the statistical basis of the UK government’s opposition to a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides during the tenure of Owen Paterson as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural…
The Hen Harrier thunderclap
It may be as recently as a year ago I’d never heard of a social media thunderclap. What it is, is this. If you have an account on social media (eg Twitter) you can send out messages which might be seen by all the people that ‘follow’ you. A social media thunderclap is where lots …
Oscar Dewhurst – Scarlet-bellied Mountain-tanager
Comments Off on Oscar Dewhurst – Scarlet-bellied Mountain-tanager
Oscar writes: Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager: This was taken in the cloud forest of Peru, at Wayqecha Biological Research Station. Mixed species flocks would regularly pass very close by my room, so I spent a couple of hours standing just outside waiting. This Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager perched out in the open for me. Nikon D300s, Nikon 600mm f4…
Hen Harrier Day – one week away
Hen Harrier Day is a week away! Hundreds of people will be gathering in three places across the north of England a week today to express their support for the threatened Hen Harrier. If you can’t make it to any of those events – and the Peak District one is full to capacity – then…
Sunday book review – the Dragonfly Diaries by Ruary Mackenzie Dodds
This is the story of the establishment of Europe’s first dragonfly centre – written by the man who set it up. But it’s more than that because it is a story of a love of dragonflies, and a story of dragonfly lovers too. I liked it a lot. The dragonfly centre in question was established…
What they say 12:
The latest in the series of BAWC podcasts ahead of Hen Harrier Day (it’s difficult to keep up!) is a fascinating interview with Andrew Gilruth of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. You should listen to it here. I don’t know Andrew Gilruth, as far as I recall we’ve never met, but I was very…
And so The Times says farewell to Simon Barnes
Today sees the last of Simon Barnes’s pieces in The Times – a subject about which readers of this blog have expressed their opinions forcefully (see here and here). Simon writes two wildlife pieces today (and there is some sport going on in Glasgow apparently) – one about the wonders of Sea Eagles on Mull…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
That hedge again
Thank you to all who commented on the state of a local hedge after my blog on Wednesday evening. Opinions seemed to be divided between insect damage, spray drift and some nasty chemical ending up in the ditch at the foot of the hedge. I went back to the site yesterday evening to have another…