It’s a fascinating general election which has been preceded by a tedious and shallow election campaign. None of the political parties, certainly not the ‘Big Two’, come out of the campaign with much credit. It’s been a ‘heads down’ rather than an ‘eyes up’ campaign, with little analysis, little laying out of political philosophy and…
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Three Harriers go missing
The RSPB has just disclosed that three adult male Hen Harriers have gone missing from their ‘stronghold’ in the Forest of Bowland over the last three weeks. All three birds had active nests on United Utilities land and all three disappeared away from their nesting sites. Two of the nests have failed (as the males…
Henry is game
Henry did tell me that he has eaten grouse in the past, and so we went to Yorkshire Game to see what they had to offer. But they’d all gone home when we arrived. So Henry did a few circuits of the car park to stretch his wings. As Henry told you earlier, North Yorkshire…
Timing is everything
Yesterday I did the first visit to my first BBS square. I might have done it on Bank Holiday Monday but my plan, based on a favourable forecast, was to see lots of butterflies in the Chilterns on Monday. However, the forecast was an accurate weather forecast rather than a butterfly forecast and the Dukes…
Easy win on lead, minister
The incoming DEFRA ministers, will soon have to make a decision on whether to ban the use of lead ammunition in England. The science is pretty straightforward, and has been reviewed by an expert group, but the expected recommendation, to ban lead ammunition, will be deeply unpopular with vocal interest groups. I had a part…
Henry knows the Rules!
Henry asked me whether I’d had a reply from Rules restaurant about the provenance of their game meat and the amount of lead that is contained in it (and see here, here and here for previous bizarre correspondence on this subject). I’m afraid that London’s oldest restaurant, which specialises in game, is remarkably tight-lipped about…
Henry in Focus
Henry and I popped in to see the nice man at In Focus on the north Norfolk coast. Henry likes meeting people and I had a problem with my 37-year old Zeiss 10x40B Dialyt binoculars. The problem was that I had dropped them again! As Henry chattered away the In Focus man laid his hands…
Guest blog – A story of nature and human wellbeing by Andy Atkins
Andy Atkins steps down from 7 years as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth in June. He is taking a few months break to write a book and, if there is time left over, to paint a series of landscapes from a large collection of sketches. After that he plans to throw himself back…
Sunday book review – How to clone a mammoth by Beth Shapiro
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This is an interesting read. I like learning things and I learned a lot here. There is quite a lot of chatter about de-extinction – the process of bringing extinct species back to life through some genetic wizardry. Think Jurassic Park with proper science! It sounds far-fetched, and it isn’t imminent, but this book tells…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill