Icelandic whaling – three short updates

I haven’t fogotten about Icelandic whaling. Here are three short updates: discussions are progressing about how best to deliver the Bird Fair petition to Iceland in the most sensitive yet effective way.  I expect there to be some news next week on this. our petition has gained 30 signatures as Mark Carwardine rescued a petition…

Guest blog: Fake eggs, fake news and guillemots by Tim Birkhead

Tim Birkhead is professor of Zoology at the University of Sheffield. He’s been studying guillemots on Skomer Island, and elsewhere for over 40 years.  There is an interview of Tim in Behind More Binoculars. Most of his research has been on the mating systems of birds, but after seeing the guillemot’s egg feature on a…

Natural England in a new mess with Hen Harrier data

Natural England published a skeletal version of its Hen Harrier tracking dataset back in September 2017, after years of pressure from this blog and others. Last Saturday it updated that dataset by adding one extra column – of grid references of the last good fixes of Hen Harriers that were known to be dead or…

Study reveals reasons for huge decline of Arctic Skuas

RSPB press release: Lack of food driving loss of Arctic skuas Arctic skuas could become extinct as a breeding species in the UK a new study by the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, has revealed. The study found that the main driver of an 81% population decline is…

Celebrity women speakers at the Bird Fair – who you want.

I asked you on this blog just over a week ago, who would be your preferred female celebrity speakers at the Bird Fair if some male speakers were to make way in the interest of gender balance. 290 of you responded (although there were some ‘don’t knows’ and some ‘don’t cares’).  Some of you responded…