Bob Berzins sends these disturbing-looking photographs from the Moscar estate – yes that name may well be familiar Snaring in the Peak District National Park 11 July, Peak District snares – what they say, 12 July. Bob writes, ‘Moscar Estate (owned by the Duke of Rutland) are constructing a surfaced road across Derwent Moor from…
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I love this time of year…
The run-up to Hen Harrier Day and the #Inglorious12th is always a great time of year. It’s when the worst elements of the shooting industry, and their hangers on, show how rattled they are, and let a little nastiness out for us all to see. Here’s an example from last year. Since then they have…
Guest blog – Love Vultures, Ban Diclofenac by Ian Parsons
Ian Parsons spent twenty years working as a Ranger with the Forestry Commission, where he not only worked with birds of prey and dormice, but where he developed his passion for trees. Now a freelance writer, Ian runs his own specialist bird tour company leading tours to Extremadura. For more details see www.griffonholidays.com This is…
Check out those Bee-eaters
On the spur of the moment, I headed off to see those Nottinghamshire Bee-eaters again yesterday evening. At first it seemed the spur of the wrong moment – the journey was slow and included some diversions and delays. And then on arrival I had a brief, against the sun, distant silhouette view of one bird….
Soaked to UK extinction?
The latest UK survey of Capercaillie, carried out last winter, estimates there to be only 1114 individuals – six years ago the estimate was higher at 1285 individuals. We can regard this as a more-or-less stable population, given the inherent difficulties of counting this species. The press release from RSPB, SNH and Cairngorms National…
Updates
I’m told the National Trust has had to pull out of receiving the Peak District petition today – that’s quite last minute! But these things happen and I guess it’s for a good, although I’m told unspecified, reason. The reason that I guess it’s a good reason is that backing out of anything at the…
Peak signatures
Congratulations to local campaigners in the Peak District who, today, hand in an almost 5000-strong petition to the National Trust asking that they do not replace their exiting shooting tenant on their 8000ha estate around Kinder Scout and Bleaklow but instead move quickly forward with the NT’s own High Peak vision for rewilding and better…
Labour MP appears to welcome Hen Harrier decline
Labour MP Kate Hoey, former Chair of the Countryside Alliance, appears to be happy about the decline in numbers of Hen Harriers in her native Northern Ireland and seems to think that it results in more Curlews and Ring Ousels. The usual line from the shooting community is to shed crocodile tears when Hen Harriers…
Another thunderous week for Findlay
Another week – another million added to the social reach on Findlay Wilde’s thunderclap. Well done Finn – and your namesake is a mum too! A good week! A social media thunderclap is a device where a single message is sent out to the social media contacts of everyone who signs up. So if…
Oscar Dewhurst – Woodchat Shrike
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Oscar writes: These were very common where we were in Spain, and I was very keen to get some photos of them. Unfortunately they all seemed to have a preference to only perch on ugly wire fences or thick artificial-looking fence-posts. Finally, on our last day, I spotted this one on a thistle, which made for…