National Trust and partners signal hope and healing with blossoming ambitions around the UK Conservation charity and partners choose spring blossom as a symbol of reflection and hope, with plan to plant blossoming tree circles in towns and cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland over next five years Tree circles and individual blossom tree…
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
Countryfile
I normally give Countryfile a swerve, until someone tells me there was something horrific on it, or the horrific thing is me, but last Sunday I had to watch it as it featured my adopted neck of the woods – the Nene Valley in Northants. It was quite good (as was the bit on fisheries,…
Guest blog – Jagged Ends by Les Wallace
Who I am – Scottish with a fascination for wildlife from childhood – in lieu of formal qualifications (and not being able to flash them about!) – was on the 1990 International Youth Conservation Exchange to Hungary, was the 1993 winner of the BBC Wildlife Magazine ‘Realms of the Russian Bear’ competition and spent nearly…
NEWS: No progress on lead ammunition after one year – who’d have guessed?
A year ago the shooting organisations ‘took responsibility’ for phasing out lead ammunition with a fanfare; At the time I wrote: This statement from a bunch of land owning, land managing and shooting organisations is to be welcomed but not praised. After years of hindering progress these ultra-conservative bodies have bowed to the inevitable and…
DEFRA launches gamebird release consultation over two weeks late
The DEFRA consultation on gamebird releases has finally been issued today with a consultation period of three weeks. I, and others, will be reading this carefully over the next few days. Wild Justice intends to tell its supporters what it thinks of the consultation, and to arm them with ideas for responses, on Monday 8…
DEFRA promised consultation on gamebird releases now two weeks late
DEFRA told stakeholders (ghastly word – and anyway DEFRA’s stakeholders are taxpayers and citizens) that it would issue the necessary consultation on its promised gamebird release restrictions on 8 February. It didn’t and it still hasn’t. DEFRA has not revealed when it might issue its consulation except in an email to ‘stakeholders’ half way through…
Don’t trust DEFRA
Do you remember this blog published on 12 September? It featured this question and answer in parliament; I wrote to my MP on this matter in mid September and he passed my concerns on to DEFRA in late September, to which they replied in a letter dated 5 February for which Mr Pursglove wrote a…
Future of this blog
In about two months’ time this blog will downsize considerably, for at least several months but quite possibly for ever. I’ve said this several times but, perfectly reasonably, not everyone reads every post here every day! I’ve been told I won’t do this, that I shouldn’t do this and that I mustn’t do this, but…
Guest book review – European Breeding Bird Atlas 2
This review is by Roderick Leslie Weighing in at over 5 kilos EBBA2 is stupendous at every level, a spectacular achievement ranging from a continental overview of a crucial element of our environment to the best guide to where to find breeding birds. The big change since EBBA1, published in 1997, is the near complete…
The Well-read Naturalist has reviewed…
I’ve been catching up with John Riutta’s recent book reviews on The Well-read Naturalist. I read all of his book reviews even those that are rather local to his part of the world, of northern Oregon. I read them because they are so thoughtful and so well written. I sometimes feel I’d rather read John’s…