A child of nature going back to it in my dotage and, hopefully, becoming feral. Volunteer for a few conservation organisations; trying to find a ‘patch’ (can it be a sea wall, or a park?); writing a book about psychological benefits of being in nature; doing an MA in Nature Writing; maintaining a blog at…
BLOG POSTS
Glorious (by Tim Wootton)
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You are running out of time to visit the SWLA exhibition in the Mall Galleries, but you still have Friday, Saturday and until 1pm on Sunday. If you turn up there you might be struck by this lovely painting (or four of them) by Orkney-based artist Tim Wootton. Entitled Glorious, Tim tells me that it…
High Hope
People say that the world is speeding up, but some things take quite a while. I remember work starting on this paper, whilst I was still working at the RSPB in 2010: Twenty years of local farmland bird conservation: the effects of management on avian abundance at two UK demonstration sites, by Nicholas Aebischer, Chris…
Well done, Rob Sheldon!
A new e-petition has just appeared on the government website. Lead is a poison. Its continued use in ammunition poisons tens of thousands of birds each year and puts human health at risk. Safe, non-toxic ammunition is used in countries across the world. The UK supports an international agreement to ban lead ammunition. We should…
Bradford council votes unanimously against heather burning on Ilkley Moor
Last night Bradford Council voted unanimously (9/9) to recognise the significant environmental harm caused by heather burning and to implement a heather cutting programme. Burning has been retained for circumstances where it can be clearly shown as the only option available, which will require a substantial cost/benefit analysis to prove – not easy at all….
A volunteer isn’t worth ten pressed men
The RSPB (authors Donal McCarthy and Paul Morling) has done a piece of analysis that is rather novel and very interesting. It also conforms to my beliefs of how the world works, so I like it. Using regulation as a last resort? Assessing the performance of voluntary approaches does just that. It examines UK, EU…
Farmland birds still bumping along the bottom
In 2014 the numbers of farmland birds (as measured by overall trends in 19 species – see below) were at the second lowest level of the last 45 years (since, almost, records began). Guess what? The lowest level was in 2013! This is not a record of which any politician can be proud. The farmland…
Ash die-back – plague or sniffle?
This morning I spent a couple of hours learning about Ash dieback, and other Ash problems (notably emerald ash borer (sounds nice – is deadly!) and other tree problems. I was invited to attend a focus group (we were quite focussed actually) about how the public would react to various potential solutions to the problems…
Globally threatened vultures
After Chris Bowden’s two informative Guest Blogs on vultures (Asia vulture crisis and Africa and Europe) it is worth noting that the recent global reassessment of species’ status has resulted in six species of African vulture being assessed as more threatened than previously. In fact, four species, all of which I have seen, Hooded, White-backed,…
Corner Laughers’ UK tour
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I’m looking forward to doing a couple of reading from A Message from Martha at the Corner Laughers‘ Cambridge gig in the Portland Arms, a week today. I see they are also appearing in Bethnal Green (8 Nov), Nottingham (10 Nov), Brighton (12 Nov), Swindon (13 Nov) and York (14 Nov).