RSPB calls for licensing of gamebird shooting across the UK

Illegal bird of prey killing must end, urges RSPB Birdcrime report The Birdcrime report, which reviews the past 15 years, reveals 1,344 birds of prey were illegally killed between 2009-2023, with crimes continuing to emerge. These criminal acts target threatened species including Golden Eagles, Goshawks and Hen Harriers. The majority of incidents are associated with…

Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 8 by Nick MacKinnon

Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…

The RSPB AGM 2024

I attended most of the RSPB’s online AGM on Saturday after having a bit of a struggle to get registered for it. I was there from the beginning until I had heard that my friend and former colleague Euan Dunn had been given the prestigious RSPB Medal this year. That news was, in some ways,…

RSPB press release – Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction 

Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction  One of the world’s rarest birds, Wilkins’ Bunting, has been handed a much-needed lifeline by a small species of parasitoid wasp.  Only found on the remote Nightingale Island in the South Atlantic, the bunting’s food source was threatened by an invasive alien scale insect.  Conservationists…