Received from Natural England this afternoon. So this confirms that someone called ‘Trustee of 4th Duke of Westminster 1964 Settlement’, which I take to mean the Abbeystead Estate in this instance, committed offences in late June and early July 2017 in the Bowland Fells SSSI, to wit the bumping off of juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls…
BLOG POSTS
British Wildlife – Fake National Parks
The August issue of British Wildlife arrived through my letterbox this morning – has yours? I won’t have time to settle down and read it until after the Bird Fair but I did have a quick flick through my own piece on our Fake National Parks – I fear this may raise a few hackles….
Bird Fair food
You could write a book about Bird Fair food… …but let’s not! The Bird Fair food zone is by Cook Street and the Bird Fair website tells you something about the food that is on offer. But you have to look at the Bird Fair programme (p34) to find this interesting Cook Street promise… That’s…
Review pre-Bird Fair
This is like a book, but it’s a supplement to a journal: Sandgrouse, the journal of OSME, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East. This is the 50th anniversary issue. I have spent about four days of my life in the OSME region which stretches from Egypt to Kazakhstan and from quite large chunks of…
Shared outcomes?
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No doubt NE upland staff stood on this bit of Snilesworth Moor on their recent visit and discussed the ins and outs of the burning code etc. Burning guidelines (another voluntary code) say the moss layer under the heather on blanket bogs needs to remain intact and that appears to be a bit doubtful here…
Meet the authors at the Bird Fair
The Authors’ Forum is a relatively new idea at the Bird Fair but it has certainly caught on. It allows authors to talk about their latest books and the audience to question them – or just have a look at the face, listen to the voice and explore the thoughts of the person whose name…
Government promoting William Powell Sporting Agency
The government website is promoting William Powell Sporting Agency through a link on their website to Snilesworth Moor. If you click on Snilesworth Moor in the above link you are taken to the William Powell website… Days of up to 250 brace can be shot here which, at £150/brace comes to a cool £37,500 for…
Please sign this petition at the Bird Fair
At the Bird Fair this weekend there will be a petition, on bits of paper for a change, asking the Icelandic Prime Minister, very politely, to do her best to end commercial whaling by her country. This is the wording of the petition: Dear Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland Each year the British Birdwatching…
Great timing!
Gove meets the Dukes (and see here) and NE meet the ‘keepers. You couldn’t get a cosier relationship between the regulator and the regulated (ha! ha!) than that between Defra/NE and the industry responsible for large chunks of wildlife crime and unsustainable moorland management. For an alternative view turn to yesterday’s statement from Sue…
Just a small plea (and a big table)
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This table was produced by Raptor Persecution UK and it is a valuable resource because it’s quite difficult to find these figures all in one place anywhere else. I assume it is correct – RPUK usually are – and it looks right to me, but I haven’t checked it (because it is a surprising amount…