Over the last few weeks, and into next week, I have been a guest blogger on the RSPB website; blogging about the Rio+20 conference from a variety of perspectives. And yesterday, the RSPB got a much more eminent guest blogger to chip in – Deputy PM Nick Clegg who is going to the Rio conference. …
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
Book review – Silent Spring revisited by Conor Mark Jameson
You may have noticed that I have been blogging on the RSPB website since 1 June – in the run up to the Rio+20 conference of world ‘leaders’ which starts next week. My blog for the RSPB today is about the widespread use of ‘-cides’ – chemical poisons. Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, was published…
Swift
The BTO keeps doing amazing things these days. In my copy of BTO News there is an article on swift migration. Through putting geolocators on swifts – and rather critically taking them off again a year later – the details of the swifts’ movements in Africa are revealed. And they are fascinating. The picture on…
Book Review – I love my World by Chris Holland
This book describes itself as ‘the playful, hands-on, nature connection guidebook’ – and so it is. If you spend any time with children out of doors then this book will give you lots of ideas for games, activities and things to talk about with young people. And those young people could be of any age…
Wuthering Moors 18 – your help needed please
For new readers – put ‘Wuthering’ into the search facility on this blog to catch up. However, in short: Natural England were quite a long way down the line in prosecuting an upland landowner for alleged offences in connection with moorland management when it suddenly stopped all action and reached an agreement with the estate….
Guest blog – Save our verges by Sarah Pettegree
Sarah Pettegree has lived most of her life in Norfolk and owns the award winning Bray’s Cottage Pork Pies, which was named one of the top 100 social brands in 2011. That means she tweets quite a lot. http://www.perfectpie.co.uk/ I live in a perfectly beautiful part of North Norfolk. Most of my journeys are…
Five short jobs, since it’s quite likely to be raining
1. Support Plantlife’s campaign to make verge-cutting ecologically literate. Have a look at these photographs from Nigel and Lois Harbron of a small patch of what is essentially a flower meadow which poses no threat to road safety and is bureaucratically scalped every year. 2. Spend two minutes to get a bank to give $5…
Better than an octopus? We’ll see…
With Euro 2012 now under way our minds will turn to football – won’t they? 13 of the 16 teams are members of the EU and therefore have designated sites as Special Protection Areas under the Birds Directive and Special Areas of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. After the last World Cup where a German…
This cut is a deep one
Today Plantlife launch a campaign to stop councils destroying the wild flowers of roadside verges through inappropriate cutting. The wild plant charity says that they have been inundated by complaints from the public about verges being cut this year just as the flowers appear – giving them no chance to set seed. Plantlife Chief Executive,…
Bring in the bunting…
In amidst all that buzzard-bothering nonsense of the last couple of weeks an important restatement of the absolutely obvious was made: farmland birds have declined steeply and there is no obvious redemption in sight. The most recent science on the subject was a report produced from national bird monitoring schemes across Europe, including the UK,…