BLOG POSTS

WWT and RSPB call out failed shooting organisations, and government, on lead ammunition (at last)

Mark Comments Off on WWT and RSPB call out failed shooting organisations, and government, on lead ammunition (at last)

WWT and RSPB have written an open letter to ‘shooting organisations’ (BASC, BGA, CA, CLA, GWCT, MA, NGO, SACS, SLE – but apparently not SGO) calling for them to join in a call for a statutory end to the use and sale of lead shotgun ammunition. The letter has two fine jokes in it where…

Sunday book review – Wild City by Florence Wilkinson

Mark 3 Comments

There is wildlife everywhere and that includes our big cities, towns and villages. This shouldn’t come as a surprise really, but we are so wedded to the idea that our own activities are driving wildlife abundance down (as they are) that we, perhaps subconsciously, believe that built up areas must be the worst possible places…

Sunday book review – Tickets for The Ark by Rebecca Nesbit

Mark Comments Off on Sunday book review – Tickets for The Ark by Rebecca Nesbit

I think this is a good book and it ranges rather more widely than its extended title might suggest. The author picks up many issues connected with how we do nature conservation and why we do it in the way that we do. Much of the book is about values, and about the choices that…

Wild Justice Badger challenge in Northern Ireland

Mark Comments Off on Wild Justice Badger challenge in Northern Ireland

Last week the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs announced details of its planned Badger cull. This week Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland Badger Group filed papers in the Royal Courts of Justice seeking permission for judicial review of that decision. Wild Justice, which is meeting all the costs of the…

The shooting of Woodcock

Mark 4 Comments

Woodcock shooting is a somewhat hidden activity – few birders, I think, realise the scale of shooting with something like 160,000 birds being shot each year. The UK population is around 110,000 birds in spring (based on there being c55,000 males) and so if all Woodcock shot in the UK were UK-bred the population wouldn’t…

Were you fooled at all…?

Mark Comments Off on Were you fooled at all…?

April Fools’ Day can be a minefield. There’s a great story of a young reporter rushing to their editor having swallowed a brillient RSPB April Fool story of a Polar Bear being washed up in the Hebrides one year… But yesterday, did you pause for thought when you saw;

Still earning after all the years

Mark 1 Comment

I occasionally tell you about the huge wealth that comes from writing books – well, my books anyway. I’ve just had a royalty payment from Bloomsbury for Birds and Forestry (1989, with Roderick Leslie), A Message from Martha (2014) and Inglorious (2015, 2nd edition 2016). In 2022 these three books, but basically Inglorious, earned me…

RSPB press release

Mark 4 Comments

RSPB Scotland launches UK’s first eagle nest camera feed at Loch Garten Nature Centre In what has been hailed as a first for the UK, a new live camera feed at RSPB Scotland’s Loch Garten Nature Centre is giving visitors an up-close look at Scotland’s largest bird of prey.  A pair of white-tailed eagles, Shona…

Sunday book review – Elegy for a River by Tom Moorhouse.

Mark 1 Comment

This book was published last year but I missed it, and it is now, since Thursday, out in paperback so that’s my excuse to review it. I like it. It’s a book about Water Voles and their conservation and recovery, and about a biologist, the author, who has worked on that task for over a…