Last year I wrote about the grouse shooting industry’s habit of speaking in public about what are allegedly the results of studies that suit their case but where the findings are not in the public domain. In 2016 we had Ian Botham and Matt Ridley referring to a report which has still not been published…
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A Bluffer’s Guide to Agriculture Policy (1)
I wonder what the new Agriculture Bill will deliver for us (and I’ll come back to who ‘us’ is later). When (if) we leave the EU then we will also leave the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) which has been a much-criticised part of our lives for more than four decades. If we are to say…
Paul Leyland – Black Sexton Beetle
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Paul writes: I see lots of black beetles and many of them are quite difficult to identify. This is one of the easier ones. It is quite large, 18 – 26mm long, with a chunky looking body and distinctive orange tipped antennae. It belongs to the family Silphidae, commonly known as burying beetles. They emerge…
Sunday book review: A Richness of Martens by Polly Pullar
I really hadn’t appreciated that the collective name for a bunch of martens was a ‘richness’ until reading this book. And there are many individually-known Pine Martens that feature in this book, all living on the westernmost peninsula of Britain, on Ardnamurchan. The book is an account of the behaviour of Craig, Clive, Chris, Chloe,…
Icelandic wildlife
I wasn’t expecting to see lots of dung flies in Iceland – but I did. On a cool day, and a short walk, I saw more Yellow Dung Flies in Iceland than I have all year in Northants. On the other hand, I was vaguely expecting to see a Puffin or two if I went…