Henry goes to Yorkshire

A large bit of heather moorland in the north of England? Must be lots of ringtails up here thought Henry! I told him that it might be a bit of a struggle to find any girlfriends up here but he was adamant. North Yorkshire (includes North York Moors National Park & Yorkshire Dales NP) is…

Plaid Cymru manifesto

Plaid Cymru seems to be the party of Welsh farmers rather than the party of Wales – or Welsh taxpayers. It favours a continuation of the CAP that keeps 80% of Welsh farmers in business with direct payments. That’s pretty blatant. Plaid supports a regressive form of income support funded by the rest of Wales…

SNP election manifesto

I think I understand why the SNP manifesto ignores the environment almost completely – it’s because wildlife, forestry, agriculture, planning, fisheries etc are all devolved matters.  The Scottish parliament already has a very high level of power over these things.  However, in a manifesto which says that the SNP ‘will use our influence at Westminster…

UKIP election manifesto

UKIP believes that our ‘history is the envy of the world’ (a rather dubious statement in itself) and maybe that’s why the election manifesto doesn’t point to a very clear future, at least as far as the environment is concerned. The first place, that I noticed, that ‘environment’ crops up is in the section on…

Liberal Democrat manifesto

In 2010, the Liberal Democrat manifesto did not have a section on the environment because these matters were scattered through the whole manifesto – very trendy and imaginative and rather hopeless! This time around it’s easier to see what they are on about, which is good, because there is much in here to like although…

Royal Baby name – could it be Henry?

As a staunch Royalist (pictured here at the very gates of Sandringham) Henry is agog over the royal baby. Betting suggests that we should expect a girl (must be some inside information) but if it were a boy then wouldn’t Henry be a good name? You can get 33/1 with Betfair. And have you noticed…

Sunday book review – Few and Far Between by Charlie Elder

This book is about the author’s travels to see 25 of Britain’s ‘rarest’ and ‘most threatened’ animals; five birds, five mammals, five ‘herptiles’, five fish and five ‘everything elses’ in one year. It’s a good read and we readers are taken to some interesting places, some which I would definitely like to go to in…

Donana 5 – wrapping up

It seems a long time ago that I was looking at herons, and raptors, and storks and larks in southern Andalucia – but the memories will stay with me. I must go back and read Portrait of a Wilderness – written about the area in the years before I was born. I remember reading Guy…

Henry goes to Holkham

Henry likes going to posh houses. He enjoyed his visit to Holkham Hall where he saw Buzzards and Red Kites flying over the parkland. That’s a very good sign of progress don’t you think? Henry did think that the Palladian revival architecture was slightly marred by that large marquee thing – is it a tea…