For a decade this blog has brought you news, views and action daily. Tomorrow there will no new post, but I will post at weekends in a much reduced, shall we say streamlined, manner. On 21 October I’ll tell you what happens next… News: news can be defined as ‘interesting stuff that happened recently’ –…
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
Trespass with us?
This is interesting…
RSPB press release – Rare insect found in Cairngorms
Rare insect found in Cairngorms Scientists are celebrating the rediscovery of a rare bug not seen in Scotland for over 30 years. The cow wheat shieldbug was recently spotted in a woodland in Strathspey by a field worker from the Rare Invertebrates in the Cairngorms partnership project. The bug is an attractive little insect, with a black body featuring two distinctive white spots. This is only the 8th-ever…
RSPB press release – Pony poo for conservation at RSPB headquarters
Pony poo for conservation at RSPB headquarters Six Dartmoor ponies are joining the team at RSBP headquarters, The Lodge nature reserve Through their grazing, trampling, and poo, they will be helping to restore the space for invertebrates and birds Dartmoor ponies are a particularly hardy native endangered breed RSPB headquarters have welcomed six new team…
Guest blog – Wild beyond beavers on the Highland edge by Beatrice Searle
I am Beatrice. I am an artist and writer based in Scotland. Since co-curating the Rewind/Rewild exhibition and forum in 2019, I have been lucky enough to work with the Ramsay family from time to time on the creation of Bamff Wildland, in Perthshire. I have written up the story of our meeting before but…
This blog (6) – your comments
A blog without comments looks like it isn’t read or doesn’t interest the world. Over the last decade this blog has received just under 76,000 comments on its over 8,000 blog posts – in round numbers that’s around 20 comments a day and getting on for 10 comments per post. I’ve read every single one…
Seven weeks and 125,000 signatures
We are, by my calculations, exactly half way through this joint petition calling for a wildife-saving amendment to the Environment Bill and we have reached half way to the figure that I regard as respectable – a quarter of a million signatures. Last week produced 11,000 signatures which isn’t bad, and another seven weeks of…
Tim Melling – Fox Moth
Tim writes: I stumbled across two large caterpillars of Fox Moth in mid-October within a metre or two of each other, but no others despite searching. This one was crawling around on the recently deceased flowers of heather on the moors. They are big too, as long as my longest finger though not quite as…
This blog (5) – book reviews
No book review today, but they will continue on this site on Sunday mornings. I’m reading two books at the moment and one of them will be reviewed next Sunday. Since 2012 I have reviewed (with some help from others, particularly Ian Carter) c250 books, almost all books with strong natural history content. You will…
Tim Melling – Yellow-browed Warbler
Tim writes: Yellow-browed Warbler is a puzzling bird in many ways. Its closest breeding area is just west of the Urals, which is at least 3000km from Britain, yet hundreds turn up in Britain each year, particularly in autumn. The species breeds right across the taiga zone and winters widely in Nepal, southern China and…