I really enjoyed being interviewed by Charlie Moores in the garden of a Luton pub, and I really enjoyed listening to the interview again now it is online. We discussed farmers, grouse moors, the BTO, how I got into the RSPB and how I got out of it and I was asked to disclose the identity of…
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
3.6 million reds under the bed!
I’m sure we all share the sentiments of Bob Neill, the CLG Minister, who attacked the National Trust for being a den of lefties. It has long been a worry to me that the National Trust has been such an anarchic and, frankly, revolutionary body, always championing underdogs, speaking out loudly on environmental issues and…
Raptor haters – an update
A reader of this blog contacted the Chair of the National Trust, Sir Simon Jenkins, over his apparent views on raptors as referred to in my blog on 9 July. And having been in contact with Sir Simon myself he writes ‘The piece was written before I had any link to the National Trust and certainly now…
Mad Max again
Good to see that the RSPB has had a response to Max Hastings’s article of last week published in the Financial Times, a rather moderately worded response given the poor nature of the original article. It is always a bit of a lottery whether newspapers publish responses or not. It’s frustrating if errors go unchallenged…
Reach for the round up!
Sparrow Survival, a wholly mythical NGO, reacted calmly to the news revealed in the erudite Sun ‘newspaper’ that one whole blue tit was eaten by a carnivorous plant, with the following statement: ‘We love plants but they’ll all have to die. This is proof-positive that plants are the cause of all songbird declines and they’ll just…
A slightly dull report
Yesterday’s blog considered an interesting report by gamekeepers about the state of the countryside and today’s blog is about a slightly dull report by the BTO, RSPB and the JNCC about the state of breeding bird populations in the countryside. Yesterday’s report was based on a questionnaire survey whereas this one is based on tens…
An interesting report
At the Game Fair – I said those couple of days could keep this blog going for ages – I picked up a report by the National Gamekeepers Organisation considering the state of nature on commercial shoots. It’s an interesting read. With the snappy title ‘Gamekeepers and Wildlife’ this report compiles information from a postal…
Bitter harvest?
Around where I live the combines are out in the fields working by day and into the night. It’s a bit unusual that some farmers are getting in their wheat before the end of the barley or rape harvests. The high prices of wheat mean that everything depends on a good wheat harvest and yields…
TMS caught out by Batesian mimic?
England won the second test match yesterday on a very warm day. After listening to see whether Bresnan would get a hat-trick (he didn’t) I nipped out to post some copies of my book to very astute purchasers. This is becoming a regular afternoon outing and that’s fine by me. My route takes me through…
Do let it grow under your feet
I am quite busy in my post-RSPB life but I do find I have more time to read things that I would have meant to read in the past, but around to which I would not have got. This report, Nature’s Tapestry, is a good example of something which I am glad that I can…