On Saturday I woke before the alarm and that was early! It wasn’t because I had gone to sleep before knowing the result of the London Mayoral election and the fate of the several hundred pound bet I had on Boris (that result was never seriously in question) but because I was going out to…
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
10 ways to make a difference – and some are free
It’s a tough time for NGOs – here are some ideas for worthy causes to help. Good to see that the RSPB has the chance to buy a fantastic site on Loch Lomond. It came up once before and I was sorry that it didn’t work out then. And I haven’t noticed much land…
Wet Wales? I hope not
The Wales Coast Path opens officially today – 870 miles from Chester to Chepstow (and a very similar distance from Chepstow to Chester). That’s quite a stretch isn’t it? And since you can walk Offa’s Dyke too, you could do a 1000+ mile walk around Wales if you really wanted – you could call it…
The same and different
A year ago, yesterday, I flew to the USA for a 6 week trip of a lifetime. Yesterday, I drove to Cambridge. A year ago, yesterday, the sun shone. Yesterday it rained a lot. A year ago, yesterday, I saw lots of starlings in Washington DC. Yesterday a single starling flew across the…
Wuthering Moors 14
My Freedom of Information requests which were posted on this blog on 2 April (for example, this one) should have been answered this week since they were electronically transmitted to Natural England and Defra on that day. I followed up by posting letters to Defra and Natural England. Yesterday, at 1637, I received an email…
Say hello to the cuckoo
It’s May, it’s raining and for the first time for many a year, perhaps ever, I haven’t seen a cuckoo in April. My Birdtrackrecords going back to 2005 show me that I have always seen a cuckoo by now. I went out in a fine spell on Monday thinking that I should hear a cuckoo…
And the winners and losers are…
The two polls for your favourite and least favourite UK wildlife NGOs are now closed. Thank you for voting. Across the two polls, over 2400 votes were cast: 1330 in the poll for the favourite organisation and 1085 in the poll for the least favourite. This seems to show that despite a few voices saying…
Agriculture policy and stuff like that
The week before last the EU adopted a biodiversity strategy which says many good things. but let’s just concentrate on agriculture for a moment. Here are some highlights about agriculture (I’ve highlighted some bits for you): 58. Recalls that over half of the EU’s territory is managed by farmers, that farmland delivers important ecosystem services and…
Note to self
A year ago I had a permanent job but after 25 years and one month at the RSPB (the best nature conservation organisation in the world), and after 12 and a half years of being its Conservation Director, I gave up a well paid and very satisfying job to explore new challenges. Was this really…
Firing blanks
When I worked at the RSPB I got a media summary every day. I would look forward to Thursday as the Shooting Times would always deliver a few laughs. You could tell that when there wasn’t anything of great interest to write about in the shooting world they would fill their pages with lurid stories…