This year, as in 2020, the dawn chorus continues to help us all staycalm and connected to nature, whether we live or work in an urban or rural location. Indeed, hearing birdsong is known to calm our minds because it signals the absence of nearby threats: if the birds are singing, then, ‘all must be…
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Environment Bill delayed – report
Flagship Bill sinking – or at least becalmed? RSPB Chief Executive Beccy Speight satys: The slow, stop-start nature of the Environment Bill’s passage does not help us take the rapid action needed to tackle the nature and climate emergency. Our only hope is that this delay is used to improve the Bill. Environmental groups including…
Bird/poultry flu update
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A couple more cases in wild birds in the latest DEFRA update.
Birdwatch?
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The Guardian reports that Twitter will trial a means of allowing users to flag and annotate misleading or inaccurate tweets – this will be called Birdwatch in an attempt to piggy-back on the respected profile of the UK’s premier birdwatching magazine. A spokesperson for Birdwatch magazine may have said ‘We’re touched that the small inconsequential…
Interesting and important paper
Peatlands cover <3% of the world’s land surface but account for >33% of soil carbon – that’s a fact with which to amaze your dinner guests (when you are allowed to have them again). This paper reviews studies of the impacts of road and track building through peatlands – this sort of thing: see here,…
Biodegradable shotgun cartridges from Spain
Things are moving slowly in shooting, but in the right direction it seems. Fifty million biodegradable shotgun cartridges this year – that’s enough to replace just those used in Pheasant shooting in the UK in a normal year where about 15 million Pheasants are shot but that takes between three and four cartridges per downed…
Hen Harrier brood meddling on trial (3)
Assessing the success or failure of brood meddling for Hen Harriers cannot adequately be measured by looking at survival of chicks in captivity even if this were to be compared with correctly comparable nests in the wild. How about post-release survival too? There are plenty of potential reasons why captive-reared chicks might fail to survive…
Hen Harrier brood meddling on trial (2)
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The investigation of brood meddling of Hen Harriers which Natural England has licensed has resulted in 14 chicks being taken into captivity and 13 of them being released into the wild again. That sounds quite good, but how would we assess how good it is? Obviously, we can’t simply compare the number of captive-reared chicks…
BSBI press release – 2021 New Year Plant Hunt results
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The results are in for BSBI’s tenth New Year Plant Hunt, when plant-lovers cross Britain and Ireland head out to see what is flowering in their local patch. 1,811 people took part this year – more than ever before – but restrictions around Covid-19 had surprising impacts on the wild flowers they spotted in bloom….
Hen Harrier brood meddling on trial (1)
On Wednesday and Thursday this week, three Court of Appeal judges will hear appeals from myself and the RSPB on the subject of Natural England’s controversial licensing of brood meddling of Hen Harriers. The three judges will be considering the legal point of whether Justice Lang was right to dismiss our judicial reviews on this…