Raptor haters – an update

A reader of this blog contacted the Chair of the National Trust, Sir Simon Jenkins, over his apparent views on raptors as referred to in my blog on 9 July. And having been in contact with Sir Simon myself he writes ‘The piece was written before I had any link to the National Trust and certainly now…

Mad Max again

Good to see that the RSPB has had a response to Max Hastings’s article of last week published in the Financial Times, a rather moderately worded response given the poor nature of the original article.  It is always a bit of a lottery whether newspapers publish responses or not. It’s frustrating if errors go unchallenged…

Reach for the round up!

Sparrow Survival, a wholly mythical NGO, reacted calmly to the news revealed in the erudite Sun ‘newspaper’ that one whole blue tit was eaten by a carnivorous plant, with the following statement: ‘We love plants but they’ll all have to die.  This is proof-positive that plants are the cause of all songbird declines and they’ll just…

A slightly dull report

Yesterday’s blog considered an interesting report by gamekeepers about the state of the countryside and today’s blog is about a slightly dull report by the BTO, RSPB and the JNCC about the state of breeding bird populations in the countryside.  Yesterday’s report was based on a questionnaire survey whereas this one is based on tens…

An interesting report

At the Game Fair – I said those couple of days could keep this blog going for ages – I picked up a report by the  National Gamekeepers Organisation considering the state of nature on commercial shoots.  It’s an interesting read. With the snappy title ‘Gamekeepers and Wildlife’ this report compiles information from a postal…