I wouldn’t have gone to Oundle just to look for a Black Redstart but since I had a reason for going anyway (getting a Robert Gillmor print (the cover of the 2013 Bird Fair programme in fact) framed) then I did go. And I needed a break. I’m writing two books at the moment, and…
BLOG POSTS
Join the online rally for nature
On 9 December, the day before the close of the grouse shooting season, some of us are going to gather together at a rally to ask politicians to do more for nature. One of the things that I will be asking my MP is ‘What will the Labour Party do, if it forms part of…
Vote – for your national bird
We are getting close to the end of the first round of voting in this poll for the National Bird– organised by David Lindo (The Urban Birder). There have been over 60,000 votes so far – but things are quite tight at the top. You’ve got until the end of the month to influence the…
I’ll be at the North West Birdwatching Festival on Saturday
I’ve never been to the North West Birdwatching Festival before and I’m looking forward to it. I’m giving a talk in the middle of the day which will start with Passenger Pigeons and end with Hen Harriers. But I am also looking forward to seeing a few birds – there will be birds won’t there?…
Rochester and Strood by election
Tomorrow’s Rochester and Strood by election will see a victory for UKIP and an absolute trouncing of the Labour candidate. That’s a shame (for we Labour party members). However, this result will signal a wake-up call for all politicians in the UK. It is pretty tricky for David Cameron and the Conservative party. I’m not…
NERF 2
Sunday’s North of England Raptor Forum meeting was excellent. There’s something considerably comforting about being surrounded by glum northerners with accents. All the talks were good (even the one I missed by chatting outside, I was told) and it would take the length of the day for me to tell all of you all about…
Bird flu is back
Who would want to be Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? Foot and Mouth, Bird Flu, badgers moving the goalposts, Ash dieback, floods and now more Bird Flu. The latest outbreak of bird flu in East Yorkshire is of a different strain from those of a few years ago (probably H5N8 rather…
Catfield Fen – minded to be sensible
This may be the end of a long story, provided the Environment Agency hold their nerve – you can help them, see below. I have previously blogged about Catfield Fen on 30 May 2012, 22 August 2012, 10 September 2012, 30 September 2012, 6 August 2013 and 12 May 2014. It’s all about abstraction licences…
This time it’s the Storygraph
I spent yesterday at the NERF conference in Derbyshire but a couple of people talked to me about the latest anti-RSPB article. This weekend it was the Sunday Telegraph’s turn (and I got a mention too). It’s a very mixed-up piece. I’m not sure that the criticism of the relatively new, though not that new!,…
NERF
Yesterday I NERFed at the North of England Raptor Forum in Bakewell (whence come the tarts, or maybe puddings). I’ll tell you more about this excellent event later but the first, and, in a way, best, talk of the conference was that of Alan Fielding on the update of the Hen Harrier Conservation Framework. We…