Dominic Woodfield is the Managing Director of Bioscan, a long established and well-respected consultancy specialising in applied ecology. He is a life-long birder, a specialist in botany, habitat restoration and creation and in protected fauna including bats, herpetofauna and other species. He is also a highly experienced practitioner in Environmental Impact Assessment and Habitats Regulations…
BLOG POSTS
Bank Holiday book review – Seasonality by Ian Parsons
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Ian Parsons has contributed to this blog on numerous occasions (see here) and this is the third of his books reviewed here (see A Vulture Landscape, October 2020, and A Tree Miscellany, January 2017). I like Ian’s writing as it is clear, easy to understand, has some embedded wit and much embedded knowledge and an…
Bank Holiday book review – The Bird Name Book by Susan Myers
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This is an interesting book which explores the origins of bird names from accentor to Zeledonia. I’m interested in names, and in birds, and birds’ names, and the more I dipped into this book the more and more I liked it. The 400+ pages are packed with information and are well-referenced. I hadn’t appreciated that…
Bank Holiday book review – Seasons of Storm and Wonder by Jim Crumley
I came across Jim Crumley’s writing only fairly recently but it is a case of a deferred pleasure being very sweet. This 400+ page book is a reworking of his four recent volumes on The Nature of [Season] and is a joy to read. The reworking takes the form of leaving out some whole passages…
Sunday book review – Treated Like Animals by Alick Simmons
This is a brilliant book and I recommend that you buy it and read it – or at least, since it isn’t actually published yet, pre-order it. Despite the fact that it won’t be published until February it will be one of this blog’s books of this year, without doubt. Before telling you why I…
My lowish-carbon birding – flights
In the previous blog post I looked at my Birdtrack records – clearly birding records – to explore in more detail my carbon footprint from birding. But that was all about my UK birding. Here I’m looking at another aspect of my carbon emissions – my air travel. And I can examine my air travel…
My lowish-carbon birding – the UK
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Reading and reviewing (click here) the new book, Low -carbon birding, and particularly the contribution from Nick Moran, made me review my Birdtrack records to reflect on my travel as a birder in the UK. Birdtrack (click here) is a way of keeping your bird sightings in one place where they can be reviewed and…
All change at DEFRA
What a difference a month makes – see here for a blog about who does what in DEFRA. Out: George Eustice (the real Cincinnatus of the regime change, returning to his farm), Zac Goldsmith (keeps his Foreign Office half-job but loses his environment role, despite the DEFRA website not having caught up with this change…
Book review: Low-carbon Birding by Javier Caletrio
This is a welcome book, dealing, as it does, with an important issue for those of us who are birders. The structure of the book is that the editor produces two introductory chapters on the issue of climate change and the contribution of travel as it applies to birdwatching in its widest sense, and…
Sunday book review – The Horizontal Oak by Polly Pullar
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This book isn’t really a nature book though there is nature in it. It is a moving and funny autobiography of someone who is interested in wildlife and wild places as well as domestic animals and a whole range of other things. But none of that matters as it is a very good read. The…