Standing up for Nature
Following yesterday’s blog about the appointment of Heather Hancock, grouse moor owner, as lead non-exec on the Defra Board a few more points. the transparency data on the Defra website are out of date despite being updated on 27 July 2023 – yes, yesterday! They have information about former non-exec directors but nothing about Heather…
You couldn’t make it up, but then, you don’t have to. The latest non-exec appointment to the Defra Board, made by the Secretary of State Therese Coffey herself, is a grouse moor owner from the Yorkshire Dales on whose grouse moor two Hen Harriers are reported to have disappeared. Although Defra somehow manage not to…
I’ve been looking forward to this book for ages. It arrived yesterday and thanks to a rainy day I was able to spend much of yesterday (and some of today) getting to grips with it. It was worth the wait. I tend to think of the early modern era as involving The Beatles but here…
Now I’ve been a wildlife freak almost all of my 72 years and for much of my working life, it was part, even if sometimes tangentially of what I did. My main interest is/was raptors but not to the exclusion of anything else, if it flies, crawls, walks, swims, slithers or just flowers I’m interested…
Miles King has worked in nature conservation for over 35 years. For the last eight he has run the charity People Need Nature, which promotes the sensory emotional and spiritual values of nature in people’s everyday lives. He tweets far too often as @milesking10 and also writes the occasional blog at www.anewnatureblog.com The Poundbury for…
Rachel Hudson is a natural history illustrator gaining wider recognition for her collaborations with conservation partners to champion species at risk. In 2022 she graduated with an MA in Illustration with full distinctions from Falmouth University. Since then, she has worked with the National Trust, Iceberg Press and is currently illustrating a book about the…
70 events celebrate the amazing SwiftUK Swift Awareness Week, which starts on Saturday 1 July, has 70 events running across the UK, from Devon to Aberdeenshire and from North Wales to East Sussex.It precedes the parliamentary debate on 10th July about the installation of nest sites for red listed urban birds like the swift in all…
Photo: Andy Hay/RSPB New study finds at least £4.4bn a year needed for nature and climate-friendly farming to meet legal targets UK and devolved governments must invest at least £4.4bn a year in nature and climate-friendly farming to meet environmental commitments. The RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust are calling for…
An announcement by the government of Iceland https://www.mbl.is/200milur/frettir/2023/06/19/alraemdur_hvalveidaandstaedingur_maetir_a_islandsmi/ The whaling season for Fin Whales was going to open tomorrow but is now closed until 1 September – and let’s see what happens then. Icelandic media coverage of Sea Shepherd’s Paul Watson https://www.mbl.is/200milur/frettir/2023/06/19/alraemdur_hvalveidaandstaedingur_maetir_a_islandsmi/
This book takes eight interesting bird species, Nightjar, Manx Shearwater, Dipper, Skylark, Raven, Black-throated Diver, Lapwing and Nightingale, and describes the author’s observations of them on repeat visits to particular sites. The chapters thus comprise pen portraits of the individual species and the author’s thoughts about them and the places they inhabit. The range of…