This how DEFRA explains its position on legislation to end burning on deep peat – it should be on all peat, just as the Committee on Climate Change recommended. 54% of pre-existing consents to burn remain – that means that only about a half of landowners have agreed voluntarily to any change. You may remember…
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Opening the lid on Moorland Association pressure on DEFRA
I’ve praised Guy Shrubsole’s adroitness with the information request before – here are some more products of the information requester’s art. As a start, there is more to come, I’ll post here three letters between the Moorland Association and DEFRA from last late summer. They all relate to burning of heather as part of the…
NEWS: shooting organisations bow to the inevitable on lead
This statement from a bunch of land owning, land managing and shooting organisations is to be welcomed but not praised. After years of hindering progress these ultra-conservative bodies have bowed to the inevitable and said they want (not that they will ensure) an end to lead ammunition use on live quarry within five years. It’s…
Old bird excites interest
Can you recognise the bird above – it’s already on my list although the examples I have seen were all in fresher plumage because this is a 46,000 year old bird found preserved in Siberian permafrost. It’s actually a Horned Lark (or a Shore Lark, or maybe something a bit different and earlier than either…
Michael Morpurgo joins DEFRA general licence team?
I caught Tweet of the Day this morning just before making the tea and listening, briefly, for bird song (a lovely Song Thrush). Today’s presenter was Michael Morpurgo and his bird was the Magpie – listen here on BBC iPlayer. It was a refreshingly different take on things, unless it was meant seriously. While looking…
Moorland Association challenges government policy to ban burning of heather
I’ll blog more about this but it’s difficult not to giggle all the time as I write about it. To see, as I have, the feeble letter from the Marquess of Downshire to DEFRA, dated 18 September 2019, is rather amusing. I’m surprised the letter didn’t include the phrase ‘Don’t you know who I am?’….
Bird song (2) – Great Tits (1)
The Great Tit is a familiar bird on our bird feeders and in our gardens and woods, and its song is pretty familiar too. If you aren’t already familiar with it, then if you keep your ears open in the right sorts of places you will hear its song at this time of year and…
Tim Melling – White-crowned Forktail
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Tim writes: Forktails are a small family of seven species that inhabit mountain streams in Southeast Asia. They are in the Old World Flycatcher family (Muscicapidae). The White-crowned Forktail (Enicurus leschenaulti) is the largest of the family at 28cm and it is familiar to many birdwatchers as the logo of the Oriental Bird Club. They…
News round up
Here are a few things that caught my eye recently, and I will be writing more about some of them next week: Wild Justice forces DEFRA to act on non-native gamebirds – see DEFRA announcement. I wouldn’t say that this was too little too late, but it is late and it isn’t clear whether it…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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