Sometimes I’m busy, and sometimes I let things slip, but I usually come back to them with terrier-like tenacity. Using the hopeless GOV.UK site I found it impossible to understand how I could discover whether open access land, such as that depicted on this sign in the Peak District, would be closed or open a…
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Puffins, red-faced with embarrassment
It’s been a bad few weeks for the Puffin – only tenth in the vote for our national bird and listed in the European Red List of birds. It’s not having a good 2015. The first was just a bit of fun, the latter is a matter of life and extinction. The Puffin is one…
Oscar Dewhurst – Whitethroat
Oscar writes: Walking through some scrub early one morning I heard a Whitethroat singing and soon spotted it at the top of a Hawthorn bush. Moving round so the sun was at a better angle I was able to get a few images before it took off. Nikon D800, Nikon 600mm f/4 AF-S II lens,…
Sunday book review – Tales from Concrete Jungles by David Lindo
A book about birds in towns didn’t immediately appeal to me. Birding in built up areas has always seemed to me to be making the best of a bad job rather than a good choice. But I was persuaded by the tales that the Urban Birder tells here. David Lindo – he of the national…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Occupy the butts!
Henry and I were having a chat in a grouse butt in Perthshire the other day…as you do. A few minutes after this photograph was taken a lady passed us in a car with a Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association sticker on it. That reminds me – we must call in on them soon. But Henry and…
Stody estate
RPA – what’s happening? See here, here, here
West Pennine Moors
From what I hear and read, there is little movement on the notification of the West Pennine Moors as an SSSI (see previous blog). Natural England say that: We are here to secure a healthy natural environment for people to enjoy, where wildlife is protected and England’s traditional landscapes are safeguarded for future generations. So,…
UK fails to provide citizens with access to environmental rights
Voluntary organisations are calling for the rules on legal costs in environmental judicial review across the UK to be changed so that people are not prevented from challenging developments that are damaging to the environment. Sounds dull? Well, maybe it does but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Take the case at Fineshade Wood, if the planning authority…
What’s that noise Henry?
Did you hear a loud bang Henry? Maybe it was a gas gun? You need to read this on Raptor Persecution Scotland. #HaveYouSeenHenry? Keep in touch with Hen Harrier Day events through this website.