Press release – Flying kites: the UK’s most successful bird conservation project returns the favour – and chicks – to Spain

The UK’s most successful bird conservation project – for red kites – has come full circle and is now donating kite chicks to a similar project in Spain, the country that provided chicks for our red kite reintroduction project to England almost 35 years ago. In 1989, an ambitious project began to restore red kite…

RSPB press release – Turtle Doves

UK turtle dove survey warns of low numbers, but hope is on the horizon The first ever national turtle dove survey has estimated that just 2,100 pairs of turtle dove now breed in the UK This migratory bird is primarily at risk due to loss of habitat and unsustainable levels of hunting Although sobering results,…

Sunday book review – An Eye for Birds by Bruce Kendrick

The author, as a 10-year-old spent six months in a sanatorium to recover from TB and started to develop his interest in birds, helped (as so many of us were) by the Observer Book of Birds. At school he found three mates who were interested in birds too and they explored the Wirral and its…

Sunday book review – Meadow by Iain Parkinson and Jim Holden

This is a sumptuous-looking book – truly beautiful. The photographs, by Jim Holden, are gorgeous. It’s a pleasure to flick through the pages, except that one doesn’t flick, one doesn’t want to miss any of them so even in a quick look through the book one finds oneself turning each page carefully. Iain Parkinson is…