You have to feel sorry for the grouse shooters, don’t you? Well maybe not. 2020 was another awful year for those involved in grouse shooting, and one which brought the end of driven grouse shooting closer. For those of us determined to see an end to this damaging hobby, it represented a great leap forward….
BLOG POSTS
Guest blog – Swift Bricks by Dick Newell
Lifetime bird watcher and over 60 years an RSPB member, Dick Newell, retired from the software industry, now devotes time to devising ways to help Swifts, which led recently to the BTO giving a Marsh Award for Innovative Ornithology to Action for Swifts. actionforswifts.com documents a large number of case studies, designs and ideas. Swift Bricks…
Reminder – these were this blog’s books of 2020
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This appeared in mid-November – in time for you to use it as a reminder and perhaps a guide to Christmas presents but too early to catch every 2020 book. You can’t win them all! I’ve reviewed over 40 books here this year – a record. Here’s where I reveal my shortlist of eight books…
Guest blog – Exposing limitations in planning submissions by Tim Reed
Although an ornithologist by training, Tim Reed has a background in monitoring and data quality- starting with standardising management planning and data recording for the statutory sector, moving on to developing the widely-used Common Standards site condition model. After a long period introducing peer-reviewable data and biodiversity and ecosystem reporting models in big corporates around…
Seen in Edinburgh
Bird/poultry flu update
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We near the end of 2020 with a further rise in detected cases of avian flu in wild birds (affected counties shaded pink below), mostly swans and geese, and new cases in poultry in Devon and Norfolk (all cases this winter indicated with blue splodges below).
Jane V. Adams – Jackdaws
Jane is a naturalist, photographer and nature writer living in Dorset. Her work has appeared in books, anthologies and blogs for charities such as The Wildlife Trusts and the International Bee Research Association. When she’s not exploring Dorset’s lanes and countryside she can be found lying on her stomach watching insects in her garden. Jane…
Otter with Octopus by Gordon Yates
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Gordon Yates is a wildlife photographer and many of his superb images of Hen Harriers have graced these pages over the years. Here are two images of a female Otter, photographed on Islay in November, bringing an octopus to her cubs.
Happy New Year Mr Pursglove
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A letter to my MP: Dear Mr Pursglove I hope you have had as merry a Christmas as is possible under present circumstances and I wish you a safe 2021. It may seem a little odd to bother you with a missive in this period between Christmas and New Year but I guess you’ll be…
Brood meddling appeal – four weeks away
Four weeks today (and tomorrow) the Court of Appeal will be hearing my, and the RSPB’s, appeals against Natural England issuing licences to allow brood meddling of Hen Harriers ie Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 January. This process started as far as I was concerned in January 2018 and we went to court in December…