The Sandford Principle

I am very fond of the people who comment on this blog – most of them anyway. There is so much knowledge, and humour, and different perspectives that I learn a lot.  Sometimes you just make me smile and sometimes you provide nuggets of information. Yesterday, Richard Wilson, a frequent and valued commenter here, pointed…

Just go back and read the comments…

…on this Guest Blog by Prof Sir John Lawton about the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s plans for a visitor centre at Spurn Point. What a lot of comments – and most of them are against the idea. But most of the Likes/Dislikes are ‘Likes’ for the blog. I wonder how many of the ‘Likes’ are from…

Peak trough

The Peak District National Park is failing badly in being a refuge for protected birds of prey. Our National Parks are wildlife crime hotspots because we allow game shooting to dominate the ecology of so many of them. After five years of ‘co-operation’, when ‘everyone’ was working collaboratively to increase bird of prey numbers, the…

Not mere

I was at Martin Mere over the weekend – and very nice it was too. I saw flocks, gaggles, herds, wisps, springs, flings, paddles, plumps, omnisciences (yes, really!), deserts, a small exaltation, doadings, skeins and flights – but what is the collective noun for lots of your birding friends? Because it was a great place…

Big Story on Friday evening

I’m looking forward to attending the Big Story event on Friday at the Natural History Museum. It’s a live, staged adaptation of the Natural Histories radio series and of the book reviewed here a while ago. With Rory Bremner, Tamsin Greig, and a host of stuffed animals (?) involved, it’s bound to be a good…