Welcome back, Moorland Association

After a break of a couple of months, the Moorland Association Twitter account is back although it isn’t saying very much these days. I do like their profile picture with the abbreviation of their motto; No Harriers Survive

Tale of a hedge (re-revisited)

In 2014 I wrote a few blogs about a puzzling hedge (see here, here, here) and I revisited it in 2017 (see here). The resolution to the puzzle was that a farmer had driven down the road with his spray still on and had, accidentally, sprayed over a mile of roadside hedge. This happened, probably…

A response from my MP

I wrote to my MP, Tom Pursglove, only c10 days ago and have had a rapid response as follows: Dear Mark, Thank you for your email. In it, you pose several questions – the second and third of which I have passed to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, the Rt….

An e-petition for Badgers

Wild Justice submitted an e-petition to the House of Commons Petitions Committee over 50 days ago – they are clearly very busy but quite why it took so long, I can’t say. But after a flurry of activity yesterday it was published around 09:30 this morning and we started promoting it around 10:30. By 12:30…

Frank Hamilton 1932-2020

Frank Hamilton was a very early RSPB staff member, back in the 1950s when there were only a few handfuls of staff. He retired as Director, Scotland in 1993. Almost epitomising the early staff of the RSPB he (and most were male) was a keen birdwatcher with a huge enthusiasm for birds, nature and wildlife…

Guest blog – Hookpod Update by David Agombar

David Agombar is currently Supporter Relations Manager at BTO where he works with donors funding research projects. He is also responsible for the management of the Porzana factory which produces all the metal bird rings used in the UK. He has been a Director of Hookpod Ltd since the business was established. He was previously…

Press release – Langholm Initiative

£300,000 game-changer for southern Scotland’s biggest community buyout as deadline looms A “game-changing” £300,000 has boosted a small community’s attempt to secure southern Scotland’s biggest community land buyout – bringing its funding total to £3.1 million – as a 31 October deadline looms. The Langholm Moor Community Buyout – led by the award-winning Langholm Initiative charity –…

Phew! No red tag of shame.

Two weeks ago our recycling bin’s contents were rejected so yesterday we had a brim-full bin after a month. And it has all gone. Phew! It did make me think that aside from Christmas, we could probably manage with a monthly collection, or more easily every three weeks. And our rubbish bin of non-recyclable stuff…

An interesting paper – Pb in Buzzards

This is an interesting paper. Here is the Abstract; Ingestion of lead (Pb) derived from ammunition used in the hunting of game animals is recognised to be a significant potential source of Pb exposure of wild birds, including birds of prey. However, there are only limited data for birds of prey in Europe regarding tissue…