The Blue Tits fledged from the nestbox in our garden last week – I miss watching the adults them rushing in and out. It was partly watching the adults take feathers into the nest that made me think about feathers (see here and here). For a few days I could occasionally see the face of…
BLOG POSTS
Do you have the energy?
A Guardian article has led me to find some new-to-me sources of information. But the story was about the fact that the UK is on a record run of coal-free power days – 56 days and counting. That is quite a transformation, but let’s not get too cocky as there are plenty of European countries…
Vulture flights
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Check out the Saving Asia’a Vultures from Extinction website for information on the movements of released captive-bred and captive -reared White-rumped Vultures from Nepal, how COVID-19 is affecting fieldwork and the discovery of a breeding colony of White-rumped Vultures in Laos.
Guest blog – Inkcap by Sophie Yeo
. Sophie Yeo is a freelance journalist based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She has written for publications including the Guardian, the Washington Post, and National Geographic. She tweets at @some_yeo. Four weeks ago, I set up a newsletter. It is called Inkcap, and it focuses on nature and conservation in the UK. It was an idea I…
BBS ‘late’ visit
I was back at one of my BBS squares this morning. It was a cold morning and the birds seemed to be sulking a bit. However, there are always birds to be seen, noted and their existence entered online so that’s what I have done. There weren’t many people about either. ‘Best’ birds? Bullfinch isn’t…
Tweets
This is an occasional update on the main Twitter accounts of some of our favourite wildlife organisations (and BASC and GWCT). The table below shows the number of followers in thousands (NT 886,000 followers). A caveat: you can’t judge a man, or an organisation, by the size of their Twitter following, but in a world…
The Woodcock’s world
This paper, from GWCT scientists and the Woodcock Network, is a fascinating insight into Woodcock behaviour and is another example of the great value of satellite telemetry in moving on our understanding of bird movements by leaps and bounds. There is a declining UK breeding population of Woodcocks which in winter is greatly augmented by…
BBS report for 2019
The 2019 Breeding Bird Survey report has been online for some time (which is very good – things are speeding up) and my paper copy arrived a while ago but I have now read most of what I am ever going to read in it. It’s a very good report – the 25th report covering…
More or less amazing
The BBC Radio 4 programme (20 minutes in), More or Less, was asked by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about Pheasant numbers in the UK. Pat Thompson of the RSPB gave the figure, the most up-to-date figure available, of 47 million captive-bred Pheasants released into the countryside each year (but maybe not this year). And it is because…
Langholm community buy-out
There have been two guest blogs here by Kevin Cumming who is leading the buy-out attempt for Langholm Moor see here 2 December 2019, and 7 May 2020. There’s a well-produced and interesting podcast available here where you can hear more about things from Kevin and it ends with a chat with me. The fundraiser…