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…