Standing up for Nature
Being More Gilbert Sitting in the deserted garden at The Wakes in Selborne looking out on the Great Mead and Selborne Hanger is one of life’s pleasures. The great oak, planted in 1729 has recently burst into leaf, the kestrels nest in their customary hole half-way up its trunk. Brimstone, peacock and orange tip butterflies…
Isolation I press my nose against the pane in wonder. Sparrows and starlings squabble over seeds, and a blackbird sings. I can half-hear it, muffled by the barrier between us. My eyes slip down the lawn, past the trees, through the borders, to the back fence, and beyond. And beyond… And beyond the fence… well,…
Lockdown birding at home By April 7th, I had already ‘enjoyed’ two weeks of self-isolation and was starting my second week of ‘ordinary’ Lockdown. I am fortunate that my garden and the fields I can see from it have most of the bird species of the surrounding habitat. I have three standard bird feeders hanging…
Tim writes: The name implies that this is a tropical species but it also occurs throughout the Southern Himalayas, so also goes by the name of Himalayan Porcupine (Histrix brachyura). Its scientific name translates as short-tailed porcupine, even though its tail is quite long, but this distinguishes it from the Long-tailed Porcupine (Trichys fasciculata), which…
Tomorrow is International Dawn Chorus Day. Read Chris Baines’s guest blog about how this all started. Sunrise is about 5:20am but it gets light before then and birds start singing before it gets light. But the forecast is fine so I’ll set the alarm for 4:30am and step outside for half an hour or so….
Here’s a big pile of boxes; What is in the boxes? Photographic plates – lots of them. Photographs of what, you might ask? Photographs of birds, by John T Fisher. These glass plates, about 200 of them, are looking for a home, a good home. I’m merely an intermediary here. The slides were given to…
I’ve started being a 9-5 person. I’m now often heading to bed at 9pm and waking at around 5am. This morning, after standing outside for a few minutes, to listen to the end of the dawn chorus, I turned on my computer to see that, as I expected, there was a flood of entries for…
I’ve been asked by a few people about a good bird book – lockdown is making people look at what’s around them, and in many ways, the most obvious, alluring and beautiful things to watch are birds. And that’s why they are buying these titles on Amazon… The RSPB Pocket Guide is the 138th best-selling…
Bob was the head of the investigations and species protection team for the RSPB for 14 years, fighting wildlife crime both in the UK and internationally. He is now the Director for OneKind, an animal welfare charity based in Edinburgh, that exposes cruelty and persecution to Scotland’s animals via investigations, research and campaigning. @onekindtweet OneKind…