Don’t forget the Red-legged Partridges

Red-legged Partridges are common birds on much of continental Europe but they are non-natives here in the UK. I’d be less worried about their impacts on native fauna and flora than that of Pheasants whose natural range brings them nowhere near the UK. But the fact that over 10 million RLPs are released for recreational…

Birders’ behaviour during the pandemic (so far)

This open-access publication looks at birders’ behaviour across a large number of countries and, surprise surprise, most birders have been affected by a global health pandemic. It’s not just you who didn’t get out so much! The paper rightly suggests that citizen science studies will be affected by recent and ongoing movement restrictions but also…

Who deserves a pile of guano?

The line-up for the Birders’ Choice Guano Award for Environmental Harm is a strong field: litter bugs HS2 Boris Johnson Trump administration Water companies Well, I found this quite easy – how about you? Water companies aren’t all bad, litter is annoying but its apparent resurgence in lockdown was more an eye-opener of the fact…

A week tomorrow

A week tomorrow the Wild Justice judicial review of the legality of releasing tens of millions of non-native gamebirds, without ensuring that those releases will not damage sites of conservation importance, will take place. The legal arguments are best left to lawyers but the science is open to anyone to inspect and comment upon. Here…

Marcus Rashford’s petition

Have you signed Marcus Rashford’s petition on free school meals? I have, even though I am quite persuaded by the argument that there are better ways to spend the money to help the poor at this time. But it’s a relatively small amount of money and even if some of it was wasted it’s a…