What a gorgeous bird the Pheasant is! Pheasant blasting starts on 1 October but I think they’ll be thin on the ground, and in the air, in these parts this year. On my recent journeys around rural Northamptonshire, and raids into Cambridgeshire to carry home loads of blackberries, there seem to be very few Pheasants…
BLOG POSTS
A promise from Boris – piffle-Pfeffel?
When you are told something by a habitual liar then you have to take it with a mountain of salt. About this amount… But don’t worry about this one because it adds up to nothing anyway. Our Prime Minister is promising to increase protected areas for nature from an alleged 26% to a hypothetical 30%…
Badger petition update (2)
We are approaching the end of the fourth full day of this petition and it has already passed 37,000 signatures. I think this demonstrates how very angry many people are about government’s assault on one of our most loved native mammals. Two days ago there were only four constituencies with over 100 signatures and although…
Tim Melling – Badger
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Tim writes: back in May, during lockdown, something had tipped over both of my heavy birdbaths during the night, so I bought a cheap infrared trail camera to see if I could discover the culprit. On the very first night I found I had both Fox and Badger visiting the garden, and they have continued…
Grousers both
There really aren’t that many people involved in grouse shooting – it’s a niche hobby for the rich invented in the Victorian age and clinging on by its fingernails in the modern world. But once you get your eye in, you see them popping up everywhere in modern-day Britain. What failing government wouldn’t want to…
Sunday book review – Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow
Derek Gow is sometimes described as a force of nature, and this book demonstrates that he most certainly is a force for nature. It’s a good read – very entertaining, very informative and the views of someone who knows what’s what. It is an entertaining book – there are lots of stories about who did…
Tim Melling – Yellowhammers
Tim writes: Yellowhammer was one of the first bird songs that I learnt as a child. It is usually rendered “a little bit of bread and no cheese” but only the cheese bit chimes with me. It was Enid Blyton who popularised this rendition of the song in several of her books and poems (eg…
Buccleuch Estate draws attention to missing Hen Harrier on their land
I wouldn’t even have noticed this if it weren’t for the fuss made by Buccleuch Estate. Interesting though…
Jane V. Adams – Hunting for Ivy Bees
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’s…
Up-dates
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‘ticking up’ – going up a lot quicker than it ought to be but the speaker is trying to make it sound small and temporary – usually of something that we want to decline, described by a government minister ‘ramping up’ – going up a lot slower than it ought to be but the speaker…