The RSPB’s annual report on people being nasty to birds for 2011 is now published. It tells the usual sorry tale of wildlife crime illustrated with depressing images of trapped, poisoned and shot birds. The report highlights the Law Commission’s review of species legislation as the golden opportunity to improve protection for birds of prey…
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
RSPB AGM
AGMs are often soul-less affairs – not so with that of the RSPB which was held yesterday in London’s QEII Conference Centre. This day in the past was a working day for me, and quite a stressful one too, as the period in the morning where you have to think on your feet and answer…
Ralph Underhill cartoon – 3
Each Saturday the Standing up for Nature blog features the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill. Feel free to comment and to suggest future subjects for Ralph’s pen.
Wet plastic
I’ve only recently, this year, become aware of some of the facts about plastic in the oceans. Plastic Oceans is a good source of some information but here are some other links too (here, here, here, here, here). It’s sad to see that even the remote Southern Ocean has high levels of plastic, tiny pieces…
Lead poisoning still killing lots of birds and FSA advice on human health impacts ‘delayed’.
A just-published study reveals that lead gunshot is still a threat to wild waterbirds in the UK, over a decade after the use of lead gunshot was banned in wetlands and for shooting wildfowl in England ( similar but slightly different legislation pertains elsewhere in the UK). Waterfowl ingest spent lead shot whilst feeding. Sometimes…
Kids stuff – pretty good too!
I went to a funeral earlier in the week and although the deceased was a close geographical acquaintance rather than a close emotional friend it was, as they often are, a moving experience. When I came home I stood in the garden and thought a bit, and took this photograph of the last few flowers…
Naturally curious
Reading the minutes of other people’s meetings is not my natural habitat or habit. However, you never know what you might find. The trouble is, most minutes are written to hide rather than expose any interesting parts of the meetings they purport to summarise. What might we find out if we had the energy to…
Mown down – the Grasslands Trust
Last week’s news that the Grasslands Trust has gone into liquidation is sad to hear but it may only be the first and most public sign of the impact of the recession on our tangled bank of wildlife conservation organisations. I know many of the Grasslands Trust’s staff personally, including their Chief Executive Lucy Cooper,…
Round up
Defra: are pretty hopeless really aren’t they? I haven’t had a reply to my ex MP’s letter about Andrew Wood’s witness statement. I’m probably on a database as a pleb – but that’s better than being a patrician. (see previous blogs on Wuthering Moors). Autumn: I saw a jay on my walk around Stanwick Lakes…
Ralph Underhill cartoon – 2
Each Saturday the Standing up for Nature blog features the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill. Feel free to comment and to suggest future subjects for Ralph’s pen.