Happy Birthday Andy Clements

I wouldn’t normally use this blog to wish a happy birthday to a friend but Andy Clements’ 60th birthday deserves celebrating. Andy is a great birder, a great bloke, a great conservationist and a great bloke (no harm in saying that twice).  He has done (is doing!) a great job leading the BTO and is…

Retired hurt?

I was looking forward to seeing a titanic battle between (Sir) Ian Botham and the RSPB on Newsnight tonight. Given that Beefy is an all-rounder, would the RSPB field its Director, Scotland, Stuart Housden, to block the balls in Boycott-fashion or would Martin Harper be sent out to fire down a few bouncers at a…

A few things

Here are a few things in brief: the farmland bird index declined in 2013 (as predicted here) – and to their lowest level ever. You are living in a country with fewer farmland birds than at any time in your life. Doesn’t it make you feel good? I’ll blog in more detail on this next…

I was going to ignore this but…

Read this, then this, then forget about it. ********************************************************************************************************************** But hang on a minute. maybe we shouldn’t just ignore this attack on the RSPB by the shooting community – for that appears to be what it is. And it is timed to appear just before the RSPB AGM. Sir Ian Botham owns a shoot and…

Margate and more

Yesterday I went to Margate. I went to other places too, but I went to Margate. It was a funny day in a way – it had elements of looking backwards as well as living in the moment and a bit of looking forward. I woke early, I often do, and that made the rest…