Standing up for Nature
This is a terrific book – highly recommended! I could stop there but maybe you’d like to know a bit more. The author writes beautifully and I knew he had me after the first two pages of the Prologue. I’d bet that the author makes a good first impression in person too, but he certainly…
. Canvey Wick on the Thames Estuary has recorded more than 3,200 species of invertebrates, birds and plants. It was the first brownfield site to be protected specifically for invertebrates and given SSSI status in 2005. Originally the site of a proposed oil refinery before being left abandoned for 30 years, habitat efforts have helped…
Forty years ago I shared an office in Oxford with the author of this book and he had, even then, clocked up an impressive range of island visits. He has kept going ever since and this book chronicles visits to islands in all five of Earth’s oceans. Mike Brooke’s visits to islands ranged from very…
We might think of night in a similar way to the way we think about winter – something to be endured to get out the other side to better times. Leigh Ann Henion might just persuade you that it’s worth doing a few all-nighters to enjoy nocturnal wildlife as her book celebrates the night and…
I like this book which we bought recently in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens for our Edinburgh grandson. He likes books with animals in them, and he likes books with flaps that he can turn over. I like books with those characteristics too. This one caught my attention by having a realistic Grey Squirrel in it,…
Unique Highland juniper forest given special European status in UK first In a UK-first, a genetically unique juniper forest at Trees for Life’s Dundreggan rewilding estate in the Scottish Highlands has been awarded a special European designation to protect and enhance its globally significant diversity. The 10,000-acre estate in Glemoriston near Loch Ness now joins…
This Defra quote, “Britain is a proud nation of nature lovers, and this government is committed to turning the tide on its decline after years of neglect. We are progressing plans to designate nine new national river walks, one in each region of England.” (see here) might win a prize for stupidity if only the…
Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…
Britain’s rarest breeding bird raised four youngsters at secret location A pair of Montagu’s Harriers, Britain’s rarest breeding bird, have successfully raised four youngsters at a secret location in England The pair of birds which arrived in May have been closely monitored by the RSPB who, working closely with a farmer, installed a protection fence…
RSPB press release: Chicks fledge with RSPB support after suspicious loss of parent Hen Harriers. In May 2025, over a period of eight days, four breeding male Hen Harriers suspiciously disappeared from their nests in northern England – two from RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve in Cumbria, and a further two from the Forest of Bowland…