By chance, my review paper of Pheasant impacts was published at the same time as a BTO study to which I refer in the British Birds article: Pringle, H., Wilson, M., Calladine, J. & Siriwardena, G.M. (2019). Associations between gamebird releases and general predators. Journal of Applied Ecology. Pringle et al. add another piece of…
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CIEEM press release
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On Monday 8 July 2019, Parliamentarians and environmental groups gathered to launch a new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Nature, which aims to provide a forum for engaging and inspiring parliamentarians and others with the natural world, the major threats that it faces today, and the positives that come from a healthy natural environment. The…
New BTO President
The new BTO President, taking over from Chris Packham CBE, is Frank Gardner OBE the BBC Security Correspondent and birder. When interviewed by Keith Betton for Behind More Binoculars Frank said things like this; Where did it all start for you with birding? I was about ten, my mother got me into it, and we…
Guest blog – The Ethics of Animal Exploitation part 4 by Alick Simmons
Alick Simmons is a veterinarian, naturalist and photographer. After a period in private practice, he followed a 35-year career as a Government veterinarian, latterly as the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer. Alick’s lifelong passion is wildlife; he volunteers for the RSPB and NE in Somerset, is chair of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare,…
Guest blog – Ragwort: friend or foe? by Paul Sterry
The other day a neighbour knocked on my door and asked if I knew I had ragwort growing in my garden and what I was going to do about it. My replies were ‘yes’ and ‘nothing’ in that order, to which he responded in a slightly tongue-in-cheek tone that it was a ‘notifiable’ weed and…
The results of the summer readers’ poll (2)
Last week I promoted a poll on this blog and through social media on people’s views on a variety of issues. One of those issues was ‘On a scale from 0-9, how in favour or against grouse shooting are you, where 0 is ‘very much against’ and 9 is ‘very much for’?’. What I’ve done…
A few snippets – people and whales
RSPB: the new RSPB CEO, Becky Speight, starts work on 19 August (I was rather hoping it would be the Inglorious 12th for a true taste of what the RSPB is up against). WCL: Elaine King, the CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link, has moved on to the post of CEO of the Chilterns Conservation…
The results of the summer readers’ poll (1)
Thank you to over 2300 people who responded to my recent readers’ survey. Here are some summary results. First a few words about how the data were collected. People were asked to participate in four ways: through this blog, through my newsblast, through tweets on Twitter and through Facebook. In all those cases, anyone coming…
Paul Leyland – Volucella bombylans
Paul writes: there are several hoverflies which mimic bumblebees, Volucella bombylans is the most common and widespread. It is also probably the cleverest, as it comes in several colour forms to enable it to mimic a number of different species. This one, with its yellow and white markings, goes with the white-tailed bumblebees, whilst another…
Henry is tired but triumphant
Here is Henry Morris, with a very painful Achilles tendon, leading the pack of runners up the finish after 200km of running across the grouse moor killing fields of the north of England at 2pm today. Henry covered all the 200km and was accompanied by a range of friends, family and supporters for parts of…