BLOG POSTS
Let them eat grouse – or not…
New figures show only 0.25% of Scots eat grouse more than once or twice a year yet almost a fifth of Scotland is used for shooting the gamebirds. https://revive.scot/revive-revive-coalition-challenges-grouse-consumption-in-scotland/ That’s the finding of a report from Revive.
Guest blog – Plastic shotgun cartridges by Caroline Bedell of BASC
BASC appointed Caroline Bedell as its executive director of conservation in October last year. Caroline has more than 25 years’ experience of the rural economy and environment. With a degree in rural land management, she qualified as a rural practice chartered surveyor. Caroline spent the first 10 years of her career advising and managing rural…
Save the Blue-throated Hillstar
This stunning hummingbird is found on a few remote mountaintops in southern Ecuador, but mining corporations have gained the rights to mine its habitat to extract metals. However, with your help, the World Land Trust, working with its partner Naturaleza y Cultura Ecuador (NCE), will be able to extend a Water Protection Area by 70,000 acres…
Progress is a bit slow
There are now 21 MPs who have added their names to Caroline Lucas’s Early Day Motion on lead ammunition. The system seems to be working rather slowly – I know of a couple of MPs who have told constituents that they had signed and it was days later that their names appeared. No matter. Welcome…
Tony Juniper for NE Chair
So the rumours were right. Tony Juniper is heading to be, almost certainly, the new Chair of Natural England. Congratulations to him – he is a star of the environment movement – and fingers crossed he, with Marian Spain, can make a difference at what is a sadly failing organisation. And, it has to be…
Guest blog – New Year, New Moon Bird by Kerri ni Dochartaigh
Kerri ní Dochartaigh is a writer who grew up during the Troubles that ravaged Ireland. She lives in a very northwesterly part of the island, where the sky is grey and unbearably beautiful. She writes about nature, literature, place, beauty, grieving and healing. She writes at her kitchen table with the back door open; even…
Slightly odd ‘story’
In the Guardian there is a slightly odd story about how disadvantaged people are by not having access to National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From Exmoor to Northumberland, the country’s poorest people are being denied access to England’s most beautiful countryside and missing out on the mental and physical health benefits that…
USAF to deny airspace to UK birds in The Fens
I’d never heard of Quartz so I am indebted to a reader for sending me this link which describes the search for an outfit to scare birds away from RAF (ho! ho!) Mildenhall and Lakenheath. It reminded me of when the RSPB bought Lakenheath Fen (then a bunch of carrot fields) and wanted to turn…
Coining it in
Comments Off on Coining it in
I’m doing what I choose to do – writing, campaigning and enjoying life. And I am enjoying life very much (it’s probably much better than the alternative). And the money keeps pouring in! Here is the 6-month royalty statement for my three books with Pelagic Publishing: Fighting for Birds (2012), Behind the Binoculars (with Keith…