Royal family joins river restoration efforts across Scotland as films launched King Charles and other major landowners have joined an initiative seeking to kickstart recovery of Scotland’s threatened rivers and reverse declines of freshwater species such as wild Scottish salmon. Pioneering river restoration techniques have been employed at the Balmoral royal estate, featured in a…
BLOG POSTS
Sunday book review – A Connecticut Yankee goes to Washington by Will McLean Greeley
Comments Off on Sunday book review – A Connecticut Yankee goes to Washington by Will McLean Greeley
This biography of a very distinguished conservationist and politician was written by the subject’s great great nephew. It charts the journey of George McLean (1857-1932) from the family farm in Connecticut to a political career as a Republican Governor of his home state and an 18-year spell in the Senate (1911-29). Those dates show that…
Sunday book review – The Bone Cave by Dougie Strang
Comments Off on Sunday book review – The Bone Cave by Dougie Strang
This is a lovely well-written book, but it is only tangentially a wildlife and nature book so I’ll use a few words to tell you about it and leave it at that. The author walks through some of the most attractive parts of Scotland, although mostly in rather dreary autumn weather, and tracks down places…
Sunday book review – Wild Isles by Patrick Barkham and Alistair Fothergill
This is the companion book to the recent TV series. Reading its pages didn’t really take me back to the wonderful moving images of the TV episodes and, I’m afraid, it didn’t take me on very far. There are many great images, and quite a few moving passages of words, but it seemed to me…
Guest blog – The Geese will tell it in Autumn by Vanessa Wright
Comments Off on Guest blog – The Geese will tell it in Autumn by Vanessa Wright
Vanessa divides her time between Hertfordshire and the Hebrides and loves to write about birds, butterflies and beachcombing. She gave up corporate life during the pandemic, taking the plunge to follow her passion for wildlife. Recently finishing a Masters in Nature and Travel Writing, she has been announced as a Runner-Up in the BBC Countryfile…
Sunday book review – The Return of the Grey Partridge by Roger Morgan-Grenville and Edward Norfolk
This is the story of the recovery of Grey Partridge on the Duke of Norfolk’s land at Peppering on the South Downs (that’s Arundel Castle on the cover). It is a beautifully written tale (by Roger Morgan-Grenville) of a successful species recovery project based on the landowner’s enthusiasm for having a wild partridge shoot for…
Thoughts on the RSPB AGM
I attended the RSPB’s online AGM on Saturday. It was slick, a bit uplifting, but not entirely satisfactory and not entirely convincing. Amir Khan was a very cheery President and looked entirely natural in that position. Kevin Cox (Chair) and Beccy Speight (CEO) also said good things and said them well. Nobody goofed their lines….
Sunday book review – Nature Conservation in Europe by Graham Tucker (ed).
Comments Off on Sunday book review – Nature Conservation in Europe by Graham Tucker (ed).
This is not a cheap book, nor is it a small book, but it is a very useful and impressive book. It consists of fairly standardised accounts of the approaches to and the state of nature conservation across 26 countries, 25 of which are still members of the European Union (Luxembourg and Malta…
Sunday book review – Terns of North America by Cameron Cox
Comments Off on Sunday book review – Terns of North America by Cameron Cox
There are 19 species of tern (if you count a couple of noddies and a skimmer, as this book does) in North America. I’ve seen all but one of these species (Aleutian Tern) somewhere or other, and almost all of them in North America, but also almost all of them in Europe and almost all…
Sunday book review – Yellowstone’s Birds by Douglas Smith et al.
Comments Off on Sunday book review – Yellowstone’s Birds by Douglas Smith et al.
I’ve been to Yellowstone twice, and spent about a dozen days there so I’m hardly an expert but I can tell you that few people go there to see the birds. We all go there to see geysers (and the wonderful Grand Prismatic Spring), Grizzly Bears, Black Bears, Grey Wolves, Moose and Bison. But…