A recap: the Hawk and Owl Trust has, unbeknownst to most of its members, become very keen on Hen Harrier ‘brood management’ (known to many as brood meddling). This move has positioned the H&OT very strangely in one of the most contentious debates in UK conservation. Rare Bird Alert held an online poll which showed…
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Oscar Dewhurst – Puffin
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Oscar writes: A couple of summers ago I was on holiday in Scotland, and managed to get to the Isle of May, an island which harbours a large seabird colony, for a couple of days. You only get a few hours on the island, so after I’d spent some time photographing the Arctic Terns, which I’d…
Smart thinking?
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A sharp-eyed reader of this blog, bravely venturing ‘up north’, noticed A Message from Martha in Harrogate’s Waterstones and wondered whether it was in the right section – what do you think? And our North America correspondent send this image of a second hand copy of A Message from Martha on…
And that quiz?
This list of birds was from…? It’s a slightly odd list – comprising winter and summer visitors, but not many of either. Waxwing, Fieldfare and Redwing, and Swallow, Blackcap and Whitethroat, but not much else. That’s a bit odd. Mostly big birds that are easy to see, too. I told you these came from multiple…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Round up
A few things: pole traps were banned over a century ago but…click here feeling wild? I’ll give you the result of this little (just for fun) quiz, tomorrow at 12:05 have been going through the copy-edits of Behind the Binoculars this week – despite what it says on the publisher’s website, it should be out…
Unmask these thugs says Countryside Alliance
In an amazing U-turn the Countryside Alliance has shown itself to be on the side of wildlife conservation all along. Its Campaigns Director, Tim Bonner, is seeking balaclavas to be banned from the countryside. Probably because of this sort of activity, I guess. Sir Barnabus White-Spunner was sticking to his knitting. Since it is London…
Guest Blog – To protect the environment, the UK must stay in the EU by Stephen Tindale
Stephen Tindale (@STindale) is a Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform (www.cer.org.uk). His policy brief on the green benefits of Britain’s EU membership is at http://www.cer.org.uk/publications/archive/policy-brief/2014/green-benefits-britains-eu-membership Europe will be an issue in May’s General Election. Nigel Farage will make sure of that. Whatever you think of UKIP’s policy proposals, (I think they’re appalling),…
Labour: protecting animals
The Labour Party has published a rather brief pamphlet on ‘Protecting animals‘ whose focus is very much animal welfare and not nature conservation. It sometimes seems as though Labour sees the environment as climate change, and animals as welfare – which may leave nature conservation falling through a rather big hole in the middle! I’m…
Not so Fine Shade (8) – perfectly Fineshade!
Yesterday evening’s decision by East Northants District Council was the right one, and was arrived at through a mixture of heart and head. David Williamson, speaking for the Forestry Commission demonstrated no ecological understanding of the importance of this site and his message to the councillors was essentially ‘Don’t worry dears, it’s all OK really’. …