November was very warm on our planet – 0.97°C above the twentieth century average and the warmest November on record. In the UK the highest night-time temperature record was broken and it looks like we might be heading towards a record December too. A couple of nights ago the lowest recorded night-time temperatutre across recording…
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British Wildlife – December edition
I look forward to British Wildlife dropping through the letterbox every couple of months. The December issue is well-timed to be well-read over the Christmas break. Peter Marren writes about the threat to the NHM garden (you read it here first?) and I write about the twelve days of Christmas. There is a letter from…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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State of UK butterflies
On Tuesday afternoon I attended the launch of the latest ‘State of the UK’s Butterflies report‘ – an excellent report authored by Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. This is the fourth in a series of reports which charts the status of our butterflies every few years. More species are declining than…
Dear Mr Trump
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Dear Mr Trump Your environmental credentials in the UK set you apart from most other golfers standing for the Presidency of the USA. Please tell me that you are in favour of driven grouse shooting (I bet you are!). Nothing energises an online petition quite as much as being associated with you (see here and…
Guest blog – Media Circus by Graeme Walker
Graeme Walker is a member of the British Dragonfly Society and a lifelong amateur naturalist. Hailing originally from rural north east England, after several decades living in Buckinghamshire, he moved to Orkney in 2013. Graeme is on the committee of the Orkney Field Club and his main interest is Odonata (though that’s not why he…
Thank you again Chris Packham
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I had missed this mention of Inglorious in the Mail on Sunday the weekend before last. Chris Packham, amongst a host of celebrities, mention a book that they recommend: ‘Most of the UK’s wildlife habitats and many of our species are in critical decline. We’ve lost 50 million birds from our countryside since 1970 so…
Guest blog – Bulgy-eye in Red Grouse by Ruth Tingay
Dr Ruth Tingay is a raptor conservationist with field experience from North & Central America, Europe, Africa, Central and SE Asia. She studied the critically endangered Madagascar Fish Eagle for a PhD at Nottingham University and is a past president of the Raptor Research Foundation. She’s currently researching the illegal persecution of raptors & its…
Labour has this right
The Shadow environment minister, Alex Cunningham, spoke well in the Westminster Hall debate last week saying ‘As a responsible society, recognising the inherent dangers, we have already taken action and regulated to cut lead from petrol, from paint and from water pipes. But, despite the evidence and our previous moves to regulate other sources of…
Thank you Andrew
Thank you to the chair of Natural England for putting Inglorious in his list of books to which he turned for inspiration this year. The other four books are all excellent and it is rather nice to be snuggling up to them on the page in Country Life. I’m glad to see Inglorious on the…