I recently wrote to the RSPB’s new Chair of Council, Sir Andrew Cahn, with a list of 10 questions about what the RSPB is up to these days – click here. I received a response on Friday and here I post the RSPB’s answers to the first four of my questions with more to follow…
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Sunday book review – Protected Species and Biodiversity by Tim Reed
This is a handbook and I think it will be a very useful handbook for local authority planners and ecologists who want to do a good job for nature. It is not a book to read for pleasure but that’s simply because it’s a book to read for information and knowledge. For example, Chapter 5’s…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 31 by John Page
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John Page was born in the West Riding, a proud Yorkshireman and was taught to play cricket left-handed “’cos it flummoxes t’ bowler, and buggers up t’ field.” He went to university in London and Leeds, and enjoyed (most of the time) attempting to teach young people that there’s a big wide world beyond the…
RSPB press release – Slender-billed Curlew considered extinct
Global extinction of a bird from mainland Europe and the Mediterranean confirmed by scientists This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The last irrefutable sighting of the Slender-billed Curlew was in February 1995 in Morocco. This new study is a stark warning of the need to…
Sunday book review – The Tree Atlas by Matthew Collins with Thomas Rutter
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This is a lovely book – beautiful trees, photographed well (it helps that they don’t run around I guess) and in gorgeous surroundings. Fifty types of tree from across the world are selected and that simple idea works very well. We are given portraits of individual trees and landscapes clothed in their masses as well…
Sunday book review – The Joy of Birdwatching (various authors)
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Not intended, I’m sure, as a sequel to the 1972 classic, The Joy of Sex, but potentially a book to get the pulse racing if you are keen to see lots of species of bird all over the world. I’ve seen c1400 or so, a great many of them whilst working, which means there are…
RSPB makes a statement
Yesterday, the RSPB made a statement about its ‘comprehensive review of operations’ – click here. I’ve pasted the full statement, in blue, below as it’s not that easy to find on the RSPB website. It’s certainly not front-page news. A few comments on these 1149 words: I was itching to edit it into something more closely…
Guest blog – Life on The Skerries by David Higgins
David Higgins works in conservation. He has lived and worked in the Falkland Islands, St Helena Island, India, The Skerries, the Yorkshire Dales, the North Pennines and now the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. He loves islands especially seabird colonies, where he enjoys his main passion of wildlife photography. My colleague, Filip, takes a full-frontal crap…
Letter to my new MP, Lee Barron
Dear Lee, May I offer my formal congratulations on your election as an MP. I’m not just being polite, I delivered lots of leaflets for your campaign and I am a Labour Party member. We have met briefly – I was one of the small group of Labour supporters who met you in Raunds library…
Open letter to the new Chair of RSPB
Email to Sir Andrew Cahn, RSPB Chair Dear Sir Andrew, Congratulations on becoming Chair of RSPB Council, although I have to say that at the online AGM I voted against your appointment, not because I have anything against you personally but because I know practically nothing about you but I didn’t much like the look…