Standing up for Nature
Did you hear Katie-jo Luxton on BBC Radio 4 Today on Monday morning? Worth a listen and well done to Today for continuing to feature news (all of it bad) about bird flu in the absence of Defra saying much about what’s happening (click here at 08:45am, near the end of the programme). I was…
Following the successful publication of Red Sixty Seven in 2020 this is another run at the same group of species (with a net three additions) – those on the UK Red List because of their conservation status. Profits from the sale of this volume go to the BTO for work on such species and to…
RSPB announces new President and Ambassadors Dr Amir Khan has been elected as the RSPB’s new President. Dr Khan is an NHS doctor, best-selling author and resident doctor on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, as well as being a nature enthusiast and environmental campaigner. The RSPB also announces their first-ever Ambassadors including Deborah Meaden, Megan McCubbin, and…
Andy Langley is a wildlife enthusiast and supporter of World Land Trust (WLT), who will be doing a sponsored birdwatch this October to raise money for WLT’s ‘Life on the Edge’ appeal, to save unique foothill forests of Ecuador’s eastern Andes which are under threat. Each October, for the last five years, my employer Ecclesiastical…
North West Bird Watching Festival at Martin Mere cancelled because of bird flu. A dead Hen Harrier with bird flu from Highland in this week’s non-informative update from Defra (see here). Also five Gannets tested positive from two locations in Cornwall. Remember, the number of birds testing positive may not be the number of birds…
This is a very individual book, and I’m afraid it didn’t appeal much to this individual but that does not mean that it won’t appeal to you. So let me describe it. There are four parts to this book; First Contacts; To Describe, Name, Represent; Ecopoetics: Life Force and Resistance; Towards a Symbiotic Way of…
This book, by farmer’s daughter and now-journalist and media presenter Anna Jones, is one of the most enjoyable and interesting books I have read this year – and I write that in full knowledge that in a few weeks I’ll be choosing my books of the year (click here for 2021’s list). It examines the…
Just have a listen to this amazing interview of Robert Goodwill (ex-DEFRA minister (though not for very long)), farmer and Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby, by Charlotte Smith, on BBC Radio 4 Farming today this morning. I had to have an extra Digestive biscuit with my tea to recover from it (click here, 9…
Two things; today’s weekly update from DEFRA and an interesting remark on this morning’s Farming Today. 1. DEFRA’s weekly update (click here) is the usual less than transparent and informative list but you don’t often see Long-tailed Skua mentioned on a UK government website – might this be a first? Many of us heard about…
There’s a very good article in October Birdwatch by David Campbell – of course it doesn’t make happy reading but it covers the ground and the issues well, including some interesting international aspects. As the article says ‘…losses were catastrophic’. On Farming Today this morning (click here about 7 minutes into the programme) there was…