The recent killing of a male hiker by a grizzly bear is the first such death in Yellowstone National Park for 25 years and seems to be a highly unfortunate case where walkers accidentally disturb a bear with young and the mother bear defends her cubs. A month ago I had my own close encounter…
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
The raptor haters – Simon Jenkins
The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Sir Simon Jenkins is an amazingly gifted writer and obviously a very clever man. I love the way he writes and I read his articles for pleasure as well as for education. Back in May 2008, when the…
East Africa drought – two things we can all do
The worst drought in East Africa for 60 years is causing famine in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Heart-rending images cross our TV screens as they have in previous years – do we react with action or by switching channels? The easier, but important, way to react is to send money to cope with the current…
This blog…
…will aim to cover a variety of subjects as time goes on – including peat, marine protected areas, raptor persecution, habitat recreation, politics, government agencies, valuing nature, forestry …will treat sensitively any information sent to it …would benefit from some decent photographs – does anyone have any suggestions? …will occasionally have guest blogs from invited…
Mellow farming
Yesterday I visited one of my favourite local farmers. Duncan Farrington has pulled off an amazing trick – he has made a commodity into a luxury. And he has got Nigella Lawson to back him. I first met Duncan a good few years ago when I volunteered to do some bird surveys for the RSPB…
A walk in our woods
Yesterday I paid a late morning visit to Fermyn Woods in east Northants. Mine was the 21st car parked on the grass verge on a small quiet road. Clearly others had the same idea, and a bit of time to spare. The stickers on the parked cars showed that there were plenty of birders there…
Are you a European?
I was just too young to vote in the referendum of 1975 but as a politically-aware sixth former I followed the debate and the arguments about whether the UK should stay in the European Economic Community (which the UK joined in 1973 (alongside Ireland and Denmark, swelling the original six members (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium,…
The raptor haters – Richard Ingrams
The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Richard Ingrams finds red kites ‘menacing‘, ‘savage‘ and ‘unlikeable‘ and is ‘pleased to see a picture of a dead one‘. Every three years or so he dips his pen in poison and is really nasty about these magnificent…
The CAP still doesn’t fit
It’s not simple to understand, it’s not a riveting read , but it is very important – it’s the EU Budget announcement! The overall budget goes up but CAP funding goes down. Fears, which were absolutely justified according to insiders, that the ‘good’ bits of the CAP, Pillar 2, would be hacked into, disproportionately hard,…
Rumour
Rumours abound as to the outcome of the EU budget discussions. I’ve heard that all is lost, and that Pillar 2 funding has been successfully defended – they can’t both be true. We’ll see! I attended the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee meeting hearing evidence on the Natural Environment White Paper yesterday. Sign up…