It would be perfectly possible to write about birds of prey, how wonderful they are and their troubled and shortened lives, every day on this blog. I try not to do that because there are other sites that do it so well (raptor politics and raptor persecution Scotland) and because there are other big issues…
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
Ralph Underhill cartoon
It’s about TB
After the decision to delay the badger-cull pilot study it might be that badgers are breathing a sigh of relief. Except they won’t be because we don’t have in place effective measures to limit the spread of bovine TB in badgers and cattle and from one to the other (both ways!). One huge problem with…
Five years on…
On the evening of 24 October 2007 I was on the train to London and received a phone call from one of my staff. He told me that he had received a report from a Natural England staff member who had just seen two hen harriers shot out of the air on or near the…
Flocking to Snettisham
Last Friday I was up early, even for me, so as to be at Snettisham RSPB nature reserve by 0730 to see one of the UK’s finest wildlife spectacles. And I wasn’t alone as the car park was almost full, even at this early hour. There were around 200 of us wrapped up against the…
RSPBiodiversity?
A while ago the results of a poll on this website suggested that the RSPB should not change its name, but it was only a few hundred people and the reasons for not changing were varied and contradictory. Then at the RSPB AGM there was a question about whether the RSPB was going to change…
Guest Blog – One year on – Jennifer Avery
Jennifer Avery has recently worked for the RSPB in northwest England and will soon start work for the RSPB in southwest England. She has been blogging for a year and this blog appeared on her blog in late September. Follow Jennifer on Twitter as @jennifercavery. I’ve always loved wildlife and I was lucky enough to…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
Next week I will blog about badgers again, one day (not sure which day). The definition of a cartoon. Ralph Underhill is a talented cartoonist – more of his work can be found here.
BASC, Countryside Alliance and the chocolate
It is now over a week since I pointed out that the statements by BASC and the Countryside Alliance on the relative amounts of lead in chocolate and game meat are incorrect. Whereas these rash statements may have originally been made in error they remain on the BASC and CA websites: BASC says ‘Pound for…
More good news – unless you are a raptor hater
Today the Environmental Audit Committee publishes a report on Wildlife Crime. Amongst other useful findings it recommends that the government in England and Wales introduces an offence of vicarious liability for wildlife crime (as already exists in Scotland) and makes the possession of the banned pesticide carbofuran illegal (as it already is in Scotland). In…