I hadn’t heard of The Gearagh until I received this book. I can be forgiven for that, perhaps, because it is in Ireland and essentially this superb site for wildlife was destroyed a few years before I was born, in the 1950s. This book describes what we lost and how we lost it. The Gearagh…
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Published today – The Trespasser’s Companion by Nick Hayes
This is a follow-up to the same author’s Book of Trespass from 2020 – see review here – and just as I loved the first book I love this one too. Perhaps even more so. It’s a book with attitude, and I like that. I also agree with a great deal of it, although even…
Sunday book review – Thin Places by Kerri ni Dochartaigh
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This is another book published last year, which I missed even though I knew it was coming. If the name of the author rings a faint bell with readers of this blog then it is because she won a little writing competition held here in December 2016. This is an immensely powerful book. I couldn’t…
Sunday book review – When There Were Birds by Roy and Lesley Adkins
This book is described by its publisher, on the jacket flap, as a social history of Britain that charts the complex connections between birds and people, and in a way it is. But if it were that, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it quite as much as I did. For me, this is…
White-tailed Eagle chicks hatch in Cairngorms, yesterday evening – RSPB press release
Visitors to RSPB Scotland’s Abernethy nature reserve have enjoyed the first ever live footage of a wild white-tailed eagle hatching in the UK. The young eaglet is the offspring of Shona and Finn, a pair who are nesting in the vast landscape of the Cairngorms Connect partnership, of which RSPB Scotland is part. Since eggs…
Mountain Hares
Mountain Hares are native to Britain and Ireland, unlike Brown Hares, so we should look after them. This very recent paper; … which is public access has an arresting title and the text looks pretty convincing to me. Grouse moors not great for Mountain Hares in the Peak District. Read the paper, look at the…
Another letter to my MP – on Badgers
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Dear Mr Pursglove, Thank you for your replies to my two earlier letters on birds of prey and Badgers. I’m grateful to you for taking the time and for such full respones – see my blog. This letter is also about Badgers and follows the Westminster Hall debate on the subject at the end of…
Local patch
I spent a couple of hours at my local patch of Stanwick Lakes this morning. I was hoping to catch up with some more spring migrants as Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Swallow and Little Ringed Plover are more or less it for me so far. It was a sunny but cool morning. As we neared the site…
Woodcock shooting
When you are in a hole – stop digging! GWCT say on their website that they don’t want people to shoot Woodcock before December, in order to reduce the impact of shooting on the UK breeding population. For such a prevaricating organisation their advice is perfectly clear: But they continue to muddy the waters and…
Replies from my MP
I’ve had replies to my two recent letters to my MP. Mr Pursglove is a reliable responder to correspondence. I wonder whether it helps that I have a blog? I wrote to Mr Pursglove about his colleague’s, Mr Loder’s, remarks about birds of prey. Chris Loder MP, does appear to be out on a limb…