Standing up for Nature
Tim writes: Whinchat is now largely an upland bird in Britain having suffered a 47% range contraction since 1968-72. A range contraction means that a 10km square that had breeding Whinchats (could have been one or dozens of pairs) in the 68-72 Atlas, did not hold breeding Whinchats in the 2007-11 Atlas. Monitoring of…
I was contacted by Awemix Watches about their Time to Care scheme. They wanted to send me a watch to help promote their scheme where 20% of the sale price goes to good causes – which are currently Breast Cancer and Wildlife and Conservation. The chosen charities change every now and again but are…
Chris is a science teacher of nine years and a former country park ranger. He began his teaching career in London before taking up posts at British schools in Vietnam and China. He is a Biology specialist and currently Head of Science at the British School Bucharest. My previous guest blog post was…
I’ve not eaten this species as yet but that’s partly through lack of opportunity. I’ve yet to visit Iceland where they are often on the menu and are, apparently, readily available in supermarkets. It’s interesting that the idea of eating this bird instils horror in people who might be happy enough to eat duck or…
I wrote to my MP on the subject of lead ammunition back in August. I’m grateful to my MP, Tom Pursglove, for forwarding my letter to Defra and now for sending me the following reply from the Parliamentary Under Secretary, Therese Coffey, as follows; My response to Mr Pursglove is already on its way…
Heather burning in England is legal from 1 October to 15 April (far too late in my view) in upland areas – see rules here. It is the responsibility of local authorities to measure air quality – if I lived in an area where heather burning were common then I would ask the local authority…
This report from WWT is good – it’s one of the best I’ve seen from them and one of the best I’ve seen from a wildlife NGO for a while. What’s good about it? Well, it is a bit more intellectually challenging than most of the recent NGO reports and it also less politically…
Richard has worked in the Westminster parliament as a researcher in the House of Lords and as a Senior Clerk for the Energy and Climate Change Committee. He is now Head of Government Affairs at WWT after spending a couple of years as a Parliamentary Officer at the RSPB. He wrote a previous guest…