Adrian Pitches is a very nice man – I’ve always thought that, even when he was sticking a microphone under my nose and asking me questions for the BBC in the north of England. But now he has given Blogging for Nature a very kind review in British Birds. Adrian, what a fine man he…
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
Lots of stuff!
I was pleased to see that in Martin Harper’s blog yesterday (which is always worth reading after you’ve read this one) that Martin encouraged RSPB members to sign up to the epetition on vicarious liability. I expect that the RSPB will give this a bigger push in the New Year and I will let you…
Four marks out of 320 for grouse moor managers
The RSPB report today that 2011 saw only four successful pairs of hen harriers in England. There should be around 320 pairs of hen harriers in the English uplands. This is a clear failure of the UK (predominantly English) government to implement the EU Birds Directive. Article 1.1 of the Directive makes clear that it…
A butterfly’s wing
December isn’t a great month for butterflies (but then November wasn’t a great month for nature as a whole), although, of course, they are all (apart from the painted ladies and red admirals) still out there as eggs or pupae or some other clever way of getting through the winter if you really want to…
Fieldfares
This is the season when, as I drive around east Northants, a small flock of large thrushes will fly out of the roadside trees or be looking for worms in the grass fields. They are chunky and have patches of grey on their heads and backs – and are fieldfares. These thrushes come to see…
Use them!
On one of the last day’s of my trip to the USA I watched a killdeer calling in alarm as a man, unwittingly I think, disturbed the bird from its chicks. The bird’s cries cut through the mist of the June Gloom on the California coast – I won’t forget the sound of them as…
Various again
I went out for a walk on 1 December – it’s one of the things I can do now I am self-employed. There were fresh worm casts on the lawn and quite a lot of insects in the air – it hardly felt like December. At my local patch of Stanwick Lakes there were golden…
November was the cruellest month…
November was a dismal month for nature in our country – just dismal. This week the Westminster government issued figures showing that farmland birds were at an all time low but didn’t bother to comment on what they might do about it. The Chancellor had a swipe at the environment and announced a review of…
Farmland birds reach lowest point since records began
The latest (up to 2010) official figures for the UK Farmland Bird Index (and for that for England alone where things are just a tad worse) were published on Tuesday. They show a further decline in numbers of the suite of 19 farmland birds which brings the index to its lowest ever point. Take a…
Book offer – Simon Barnes’s new book
birdwatching with your eyes closed is Simon Barnes’s new book, published by Short Books. It’s an introduction to birdsong and if you are a novice bird-watcher then it will help you to be an expert bird-listener. Simon told me that ‘Learning birdsong really has changed the way I see the world. I’d love to help…