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,…
BLOG POSTS
Paul Leyland – Common Cockchafer
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Paul writes: this beautiful pinkish brown beetle, the Common Cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha), is a regular night time visitor to many gardens. I usually see them from the beginning of May to the middle of June, this one appeared on 14 May. They fly at night and are attracted to lights, so are often brought to…
Now and again I get something like this
I have just finished reading you (sic) very good book, “Inglorious” and even though I have lived a very different lifestyle to yours, at the end of the day we both share the same ideals, which is to help bring an end to driven grouse shooting. Five years ago I hadn’t even got a contract…
Tim Melling – Baby Gentoo Penguin
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Tim writes: this baby Gentoo Penguin was wide awake while its parent standing guard is seizing the opportunity for a little snooze. They normally lay two eggs so it is likely that one egg or small chick will have been taken by a South Polar Skua. The parents share incubation and child-minding duties, having daily…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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This website
I’d like to thank Obicreative for their work on getting this website back up and running. They did a great job, quickly and well, and are a friendly bunch and, to my mind, ridiculously cheap! Here’s their website and I recommend them highly. As readers of this blog, and perhaps of other parts of the…
Shirts – bear with me
I recently moved from the ‘Why have I got so many shirts? I can only wear one at a time‘ state to the ‘Why have I got so many shirts with fraying cuffs and collars? I must get some more‘ state. I usually buy shirts in Jermyn Street in London and I usually buy them…
General Licence confusion
I’d written the following blog post before hearing that Defra are announcing new, or not so new, general licences overnight. Wild Justice will be looking carefully at these and consulting with our lawyers over the next few days. One of the things that has really struck me about the whole business of reforming the general…
Threadbare evidence
The Wild Justice blog has published the Licence Determination document which was obtained through an information request and which forms part of the decision-making for General Licence GL26. It makes interesting reading only in the sense that it is quite fun to try to find the evidence on which the licence is based. It’s like…
It’s very difficult to know what to think
The Tory leadership election both fascinates and repulses me in more or less equal measure. On the face of it, I don’t think they look a very talented bunch and in my view, they don’t look like a particularly pleasant bunch either. But one of them will win, and that person will be our Prime…