Thursday was the 97th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon – once the commonest bird in the world and now a distant memory. The Independent newspaper published an article by me on the subject (click here) and regular readers will know I have a bit of a thing about passenger pigeons (click here,…
BLOG
Boomtime for bitterns
I’m delighted that the RSPB and Natural England have been able to announce that booming bitterns have passed the 100 mark – and reached 104 booming males in fact. Given that in 1997 (incidentally, the year before I became the RSPB’s Conservation Director) there were only 11 booming males this is a remarkable and very welcome recovery. And let’s…
CFE and NFU
Last week’s Farmers Guardian had a couple of short pieces on the Campaign for the Farmed Environment, answering the question ‘Is it working?’. I was asked to write the piece saying ‘No’ and this is what I wrote: “The CFE is a Big Society approach – ironically one set by the last Labour Government. Would…
Last day to vote…
…for your favourite wildlife friendly farmer. Rob Law – see what Jordan’s Cereals say about him here Robert Kynaston – see what Open Farm Sunday says about this LEAF farmer here Somerset and Carolyne Charrington – see what Wild Scotland says about them here David White – see what the Countryside Alliance says about him…
Gone and forgotten?
‘Farmland birds in Europe fall to lowest levels‘ is a terribly sad headline. And we should be raging that things have got so bad. The grey (or ‘English’) partridge is in free-fall right across Europe with a decline of two thirds in numbers since 1990, and of 82% since 1980 according to the European Bird…