I have come late to the works of Jim Crumley as this is the first of his books I have read. It’s wonderful – I have some catching up to do. This is a book about the Lake District, Crumley’s first venture south of Hadrian’s Wall, I gather. Well, he’s very welcome. Come back again…
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
An old issue in The New Issue
The New Issue is a quarterly magazine produced by Big Issue North. The summer edition has an article, beautifully illustrated with photographs and well written by Roger Ratcliffe, tackling the Hen Harrier issue. Nestled between articles about Joan from Hull and her tattoos and a graphic article entitled Wives and Punishment, and near articles on…
A potentially interesting paper
Honours
Full list here – did I miss many people? CBE Jameel Sadik AL-KHALILI OBE FRS, Professor of Physics and Professor of Public Engagement in Science, University of Surrey. For services to Science and Public Engagement in STEM Emma HOWARD BOYD, Chair, Environment Agency. For services to the Environment William James SUTHERLAND, Miriam Rothschild Professor, Conservation…
Eustice disappoints
Just over three weeks ago, George Eustice made quite good speech, but you should never go overboard on praising government departments for speeches when they have to act later to make those words into reality. This week, amendments were published to the Environment Bill which fall far short of what it seemed we would get…
Guest blog – Response from the Saving Wildcats team
Dear Mark, Following a blog published on your website in January, we thought we should get in touch. We, Saving Wildcats, are a partnership project that aims to restore wildcats to Scotland through captive-breeding and release. We believe it’s our responsibility to address the inaccurate information within Dominic Woodfield’s guest blog. The Saving Wildcats project is the next…
Sunday book review – A Sky Full of Kites by Tom Bowser
This is the story of the Argaty Kite project, based near Stirling, and that itself is an interesting story, but this book is more than that, in that it is a tale of Red Squirrels, Pine Martens, dragonflies and a host of other creatures, and a tale of a place and a family. I liked…
Wild Justice starts two more legal cases
Wild Justice forced DEFRA to introduce restrictions on the release of non-native gamebirds into the countryside in a process which started back in 2019, produced, eventually a review of the evidence and a last-minute announcement that DEFRA would put Red-legged Partridge and Pheasant on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act making it an…
Golden Plover by Brian Leecy
Smart bird!
Festival of Debate – the Peak District
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Last Monday evening I was part of a chat with Natalie Bennett and Alex Lees which discussed driven grouse shooting. It felt quite fun at the time, and was streamed live, but you can catch up with it here too.