I’ve just had an email from the Corbyn campaign (you’ve already got my vote Jeremy!) – I get about five a day from the various candidates. It contained this paragraph: ‘We cannot write off rural areas as “the Tory shires”, abandoning communities struggling with issues such as housing costs, public service cuts and…
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Guest blog – Photographing Hen Harriers by Gordon Yates
Gordon Yates is a photographer who has been an RSPB member for 60 years and a ringer with BTO for 41 years. He is credited with discovering the population of Hen Harriers on Islay in the 1970s and by 1983 proved that there were up to 50 pairs breeding. (In 1989 Gordon ringed 86 pulli…
Happy publisher and a question for you.
I saw my commissioning editor at Bloomsbury, Jim Martin, last week. He seems delighted with me – he even bought me a cup of coffee! Inglorious must be selling well! We talked about the paperback which will come out next July and will include a brief update on this year, 2015. But, sensing that Jim…
August was a record month for this blog
For the first month ever, this blog received over 100,000 page views (103,727) – previous best was August 2014 (88,787 page views: and two previous months with over 80,000 (July 2014 and May 2015). It also recorded the second highest number of unique visitors through the month – 21,687 (cf 22,238 in June 2014). This…
Keep one, drop one
Last year, at about this time of year, I joined both the Hawk and Owl Trust and the League Against Cruel Sports. Because of their eager campaigning for brood meddling for Hen Harriers I have left the H&OT (I must put that metal badge in the post to them) but I recently got a renewal…
Wuthering Moors 51
email to Dr Mike Clarke, Chief Exec of the RSPB. Dear Mike How are you getting on with your complaint to the EU over Defra’s handling of the Walshaw Moor case and its position on burning of blanket bogs in general? I have asked Defra how they are getting on but they have invoked…
Wuthering Moors 50
Dear Defra I am complaining about your response to a FoI request RFI 7667 on two grounds: the time taken to reply and the answer that I received. The time taken to reply. Your reply was short and contained no information that you needed to spend lots of time collecting and yet you took…
Wuthering Moors 49
I asked Defra for an update on the ‘progress’ with the complaint by the RSPB against the UK government to the EU over burning of blanket bogs (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and Inglorious for more details) on 6 July. After the usual delay in replying I received what passes for…
Poll results – brood meddling even more unpopular
A poll organised by Rare Bird Alert (click here) which is essentially a repeat of a similar poll of over 6 months ago, suggests that birders (and others – for the poll was open to anyone) have set their faces more firmly against brood management as they have learned more about it. This is a…
de luxe?
I was treated to dinner last week by a friend, a vegetarian friend actually, who booked a table in the Galvin Bistro de Luxe on Baker Street. We were both amused to see this notice near our table. I emailed the Galvin group in July to ask about what steps they take to ensure that…