This book was a disappointment. The basic structure is a chapter by chapter account of 15 species of UK raptor, each described in a different place, stretching from Hen Harriers on Orkney in Chapter 1 to Devon Sparrowhawks in Chapter 15. Wrapped into this structure is a tale of the life, and a previous journey,…
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Thank you but still looking for more support
Three weeks today I’ll be in Israel for the first time in my life. I’m participating in the Birdwatch-Birdguides Roadrunners team in the Champions of the Flyway event. I’m curious to go to Israel for my first time as it’s definitely not the least controversial country in the world. I’ll write about the impression it…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Mark writes: I am unlikely ever to vote Conservative since I have got this far in life without feeling the urge, and I am very likely to vote for ‘Remain’ in the EU referendum in June. According to this analysis, the Conservative Party MPs are more or less equally split between Remain and Leave supporters…
Also in BB this month
As well as the good news for me in the March British Birds, there is a more substantial piece of news (as well as lots of other good stuff): a report by Prof Ian Newton FRS on the lead ammunition debate. At the beginning of his concluding remarks Ian writes ‘My own view is that…
Very pleased to be second
I’ve got a lovely certificate to hang on the office wall: Inglorious was the second choice in the BB/BTO Best Bird Book of the Year for 2015. Woohoo! I notice that the judges say ‘Not all will agree with the conclusion…’, although my thought is ‘give it time and they will!’, but I was, of…
Loch of the Lowes and Glenisla
I was lucky to have most of a day for mooching on Friday – and I was able to mooch in Perthshire and Angus. I first went to the Loch of the Lowes – a famous Osprey site but also an easy place to see Red Squirrels. Just because it is easy to see them…
Torch the parks
As I drove north up the A1 through Yorkshire, plumes of smoke were rising from our National Parks: the North York Moors on the right and the Yorkshire Dales on the left. They were being torched in order to provide the right conditions for unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse. Passing through parts of Yorkshire,…
Another great day
Last Sunday was a great day – how could it not be in scenery like this? And there was an adult White-tailed Eagle seen several times to add to the view (and a distant probable Golden Eagle too). As the eagle flew over these hills it scared Red Grouse into the air and they were…
Scary
Iolo Williams is a mate of mine but it was slightly unnerving to spend a night in the Grant Arms Hotel last week with his shiny face grinning at me through the dark all night long. Scary! Truly scary!
Great day
I spent Saturday – a lovely sunny day – inside the SNH conference centre at Battleby – at a Scottish Raptor Study Groups’ conference. It was a great day. I was speaking, which always takes the shine off my day (and perhaps others’ too), but the other speakers were a very impressive line-up. We…