There’s a House Sparrow nest in the roof above my head as I write. But next door has a House Sparrow nest too, and theirs is easier to watch from our garden, and that’s what I have been doing for over a week. The frequent visits to the nest have become quite addictive and I’ve…
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
Grass that deters birds?
Sunday book review – A Beginner’s Guide to Dragonflies and Damselflies of Britain and Ireland by David Chandler
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This book was published last year but I missed it. It’s a beginner’s guide – like it says in its title. By that it means that although it covers all the damselflies and dragonflies of the British Isles it concentrates on those species that are most common and widespread – just to get you started….
Sunday book review – International Treaties in Nature Conservation by Stroud, D.A. et al.
This is a small book on a big subject. The subject of international treaties (such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention, the Bern Convention) may not sound gripping but it is important if one wants to understand why governments must behave in certain ways and can be brought to account if they…
Good things and bad things
If you are subscribed to my free monthly newsletter then last week you would have received my thoughts on George Eustice’s environment speech – there were good bits and less good bits. The most worrying looking bit was the announcement that DEFRA was going to fiddle about with the Habitats Regulations now that we are…
Guest blog – The Cultural Landscape in the Anthropocene by Karen Lloyd
Karen Lloyd is the author of Abundance: Nature in Recovery, published by Bloomsbury in September 2021, and the award-winning author of The Gathering Tide; A Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay and The Blackbird Diaries, both published by Saraband. She is an environmental activist and produced and edited the Curlew Calling Anthology to raise…
Sunday book review – Britain’s Insects by Paul D. Brock
There are over a million species of insect in the world and over 25,000 in Britain and Ireland. How can one produce a useful field guide to those species? This, the latest in the WILDGuides series, is a masterful exercise in clarity, clear design and will get you to the right identification of the species…
Pow on Woman’s Hour
This was a cracking interview of Rebecca Pow, DEFRA minister, by Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour on Thursday. We moved through plastic bags, plastic waste exports to Turkey, tree-planting v HS2, road building, coal mines, trade deals with Australia and where to go on holiday. It was robust, tough but pretty fair, and went to…
Hen Harriers
Hen harriers are nesting in the hills, and the persecution and the brood meddling go on. Here are three items of news, although the first of them is an ongoing item of non-news that may soon be of itself newsworthy. 1. Brood meddling legal challenge The story so far; 2018 – Natural England issue licences…
Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and lead in meat
Last week Wild Justice published five blog posts about lead in game meat sold by two leading supermarkets, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. On Monday: Sainsbury’s game meat – and why we tested its lead levels did just that – it was because Sainsbury’s were misleading and evasive about lead levels in game meat on sale in…