I like giving talks and have given a lot of them over the last few years. But with COVID-19, the opportunities have disappeared. In some ways, this is a bit of a relief as, a bit like air travel, travelling to remote village halls in the dark on rainy days in November may sound ultra-glamorous,…
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Sunday book review: Framing Nature by Laurence Rose
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There seems to have been something of a flood of very good books for me to review here recently, and here’s another one (and there are some more in the pipeline). Laurence Rose’s book is a thoughtful and well-informed look at nature conservation in the UK and every few pages I was thinking ‘That’s a…
Tim Melling – Green Woodpecker
Tim writes: Green Woodpeckers are shy birds that I rarely see well. They are thin on the ground where I live in the Pennines and extremely skittish. I hear them call more often than I see them, and when I do see them it is often a flight view, or of one hiding on the…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Guest blog – Keep the Red Grouse Flying by James Walsh
James Walsh, also known as The Mancunian Birder, ecologist / author / journalist, is the author of “Northern Greenhouse – A New Vision of the North” and “Greater Manchester Birding City Region” Twitter: @MancunianBirder Website: mancunianbirder.wordpress.com YouTube: Mancunian Birder Here he keeps the Red Grouse flag flying high… whilst listening to Aztec Camera on Buzz…
Press release – Rewilding Britain
Natural regeneration key to doubling woodlands and saving Britain’s crippled forests Government’s draft England Tree Strategy ‘woefully inadequate’ Allowing trees to naturally establish over huge areas could massively expand Britain’s woodlands more effectively and at a fraction of the cost of tree planting, according to research by Rewilding Britain. It says the Government’s draft England Tree Strategy,…
EU Member states vote for lead ban in all wetlands
This from the EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries; Woohoo! Obviously welcomed by conservationists across Europe. As I understand it this will include wetlands like blanket bogs and so, if only we were still in the EU, it would include driven grouse shooting. I’m still a Remainer but luckily (ha!ha!) all those Brexiteers like…
How many Hen Harriers?
In late June the Moorland Association jumped the gun and said there were 12 Hen Harrier nests on grouse moors in England this year. They also said that this equalled the number in the whole of England last year (not true according to Natural England). And they said that 6 of these nests were in…
Hen Harrier brood-meddling – just for the record…
Since we are definitely having a Hen Harrier-fllled day… On 27 July this blog pointed out to Natural England that it was all over the place with what it said about the reasons (there are no good ones) for the Hen Harrier brood meddling trial – see here. Natural England’s blog, written by their Director…
Natural England’s Hen Harrier numbers were wrong
RSPB has just sent me this; Just seen your blog. Many apologies for the confusion. To clarify, 24 nests were monitored in total and 19 were successful. Hope that clears things up. That’s what I guessed but there is no reason for RSPB to apologise, it is Natural England which has sent out an ambiguous…