Standing up for Nature
This is an account of an almost 2-year stint wardening the nature reserve on Aride Island in the Seychelles. Idyllic tropical paradise or small island community with plenty of difficult characters to navigate? Or both? Sally Mills worked for the RSPB in Somerset and, with her partner, she took the opportunity to see the sand,…
A sumptuously illustrated and beautifully written volume with accounts of 100 plants and their roles in human existence. This is one of those fairly rare books that is good to look at and even better to read. If you have forgotten what a brilliant writer is Simon Barnes then this book is a fine reminder….
Our new PM does seem like a welcome relief from Liz Truss but that is more a commentary on how dire things looked last week rather than how brilliant they look now. Remember, Mr Sunak is from a grouse-shooting constituency – Richmond in Yorkshire. And he is, according to Shooting Times (a not always reliable…
I dreaded this as yesterday afternoon passed. Who would get Defra? Might Sunak bring back George Eustice? Might he even bring back Michael Gove? Or was it just possible he would notice that Dr Coffey had spent some time in Defra and, to rub in her fall from Deputy PM, give her Defra to manage?…
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…