On Thursday morning our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting will be only six months old and yet it has gathered over 19,500 signatures. Thank you to all who have signed. I think it is perfectly possible that we will pass the 20,000 barrier by Christmas Day, maybe much earlier, and every added signature sends…
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North West Birdwatching Fair
It was better than fair – it was good. I spoke to lots of nice people, and the very nicest ones bought copies of A Message from Martha too! That included the very nice Mike Dilger. He was speaking at Martin Mere before my talk on Saturday and you couldn’t ask for a better warm-up…
First day of winter
I’m regarding today as the first day of winter because there was a decent frost. You couldn’t call it a hard frost, more a soft frost, but a proper frost all the same. When I parked at Stanwick Lakes a little after 0730 it was cold and frosty. It felt cold as I took off…
This could be a very useful list
The latest in the ‘You Forgot the Facts, Sir Ian’ campaign is reaching out to the farming community. Farmers are being asked to sign up to an error-riddled anti-RSPB letter, and when 100 of them do, then their names will be published. I’ve always wanted a list of the 100 most ecologically illiterate and rabid…
I do like Mondays
I like every day. This Saturday I was talking at Martin Mere at the North West Birdwatching Fair – that was fun – and I’ll write about it. And yesterday I was having a look at a few grouse moors in the North of England – and I’ll write about that too (though not necessarily…
Oscar Dewhurst – Common Tern
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Oscar writes: This bird was repeatedly fishing from in front of the hide I was sitting it. The usual problem with birds is that they’re too far away, but it certainly didn’t apply here! Instead the bird often plunged into the water so close to the hide that it was too close to focus…
Sunday book review – My Year with Hares by Martin Hayward Smith
This book is lovely. There are lots of photographs, very good photographs, the author is a professional cameraman and photographer, and some pretty good words. It’s the story of a year spent looking at Brown Hares in North Norfolk, in the part of the world that birders and people with boats, both drive through quickly,…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Round up
Just a few things that might interest you: the photo above shows an ancient god and goddess – it’s nice to see Athena joining in on behalf of Hen Harriers and thank you to Ron Kinrade for the photo from the Naples Archeological Museum. Athena was (and still is, I guess), of course, quite keen…
GWCT at half-cock, shooting from the hip and mistaking its target
We all make mistakes but it would normally be expected that, when made, a more gracious acknowledgement of them might follow than that of the GWCT here. It is completely untrue to suggest that an earlier draft of the letter went as follows: Dear Sir William Langley’s comment piece on the RSPB had us rolling…