This morning’s discussion about the Northern Bald Ibis on the Today programme was a bit pathetic and maybe exemplifies the BBC’s inability to deal accurately and seriously with wildlife stories. Jim Naughtie couldn’t pronounce ‘ibis’ properly and neither he nor the reporter could manage to say ‘ornithologist’. Hardly the worst crime in the world, even…
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Henry at Cley
Henry chillaxing at Cley. #HaveYouSeenHenry?
Beefy loses his line and length
Last week the You Forgot the Birds campaign disclosed that their ‘campaign’ was funded by the British grouse industry. Today, in the Mail on Sunday (prop P Dacre, grouse moor owner) YFtB is described as a grassroots campaign of farmers and conservationists. 59-year old Ian Botham has been brought back into the bowling attack. He attempts…
Sunday book review – The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy
Nice cover! This is a book about loss – and about joy, and about wonder, and about hope. There’s a lot about the loss of nature over the last few decades and the author mixes this with memories of personal loss. A love of nature can be a support and strength during one’s life. And…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Henry occupies yet another butt
Henry encourages you to get yourself photographed in a grouse butt. #HaveYouSeenHenry?
Henry in Bowland 3
Henry’s ears should have been burning last night because he kept coming up in conversation at the launch of Michael McCarthy’s book, The Moth Snowstorm, in the Linnaean Society in Piccadilly. This was a gathering of the friends of one of the country’s finest writers about environmental matters and the natural world – it was…
That power list
The BBC Wildlife Power List is being talked about wherever I go – well, not in the Post Office, or the supermarket, or the garage… But talked about by the nature conservation community? It certainly is! Thanks very much to Ben Hoare for his Guest Blog on the subject on Tuesday – some interesting points…
Lord Gardiner
I had hoped there would be a Gardiner in Defra after the election, but I had hoped it would be Barry Gardiner MP. What has happened is that Lord Rupert de Mauley has gone and he hasn’t been replaced as a full minister (and as far as I can see he hasn’t got another job…
The grouse moor industry
Henry is, by chance, very topical this week, seeing as how he is in the Forest of Bowland. Yesterday, Henry reminded us of how many Hen Harriers used to nest in that area in the recent past. The number of nests has often been in double figures – several times higher than the current whole…