Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust scientists have published a paper which says that ‘Respiratory cryptosporidiosis is a new and rapidly spreading disease in red grouse.’. This is a disease normally found in captive birds but the first case in the ‘wild’ was found in the North Pennines in 2010. Worryingly, this paper also states that…
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Stanwick Lakes delivers unique experiences
My local patch of Stanwick Lakes is nothing special in birdwatching terms – except it is my local patch. My Birdtrack records tell me that since September 2004 I have visited this site, and kept a species list of birds for the visit, on 368 occasions, recording in the process 152 species of bird. Some…
Visit to Aberdeen
It was great fun talking to a packed lecture theatre in the Zoology Department in Aberdeen about Passenger Pigeons and Hen Harriers on Tuesday evening. We also all had the opportunity to look at a stuffed Passenger Pigeon in the adjacent museum – which I always find is a rather poignant experience. I was talking…
Guest blog – Crunch time for Britain’s bees by Joan Walley MP
As MPs return to parliament from party conference season, leading MP Joan Walley, says the Government’s plans for bees ‘fail to offer’ the solution bees need. The decline in bee and other pollinators’ populations is a very real threat not just to the pollinators themselves but also to the world…
More on vultures
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I’m grateful to the Vulture Conservation Foundation for an update on situation with diclofenac (a medical drug that is a bit like aspirin for you but more like cyanide for vultures feeding on animal carcasses which contain it). A review of the evidence for the impact of diclofenac on European vultures has been produced by…
Simon Barnes
The removal of Simon Barnes from The Times disappointed many readers of this blog. I am still getting emails about it from people in response to these two blogs – here and here. I had lunch with Simon a few weeks ago and I’m looking forward to reading his new book, Ten Million Aliens, which…
Letter to my MP
To Andy Sawford MP Dear Andy I hope this finds you well. I am writing to enlist your support in getting some information out of Defra – in fact, I wonder whether you could check whether anyone is at home in that department. I have made several FOI requests to Defra via my…
Vote for Bob (again)
Some people are being a bit sniffy about Bob the squirrel – being so open-minded I can see why, and I can see why they are wrong (in my humble opinion – as people say when they are anything but humble). The RSPB is using Bob to stand for nature and will simply use the…
In flight
I’m getting on a plane today for the first time since June 2013. I’m heading up to Aberdeen to give a talk about Passenger Pigeons (and a little bit about Hen Harriers) to the Aberdeen RSPB Group on their 40th anniversary. I’m looking forward to seeing Aberdeen again. It must be almost exactly 34 years…
Plenty of life in e-petition 65627
I just happened to make a note a couple of weeks ago of the number of signatures attached to our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and the e-petition for the non-joint non-plan. Ours stood at 17,608 signatures whereas the GWCT effort was at 10,414. Now, we were off the mark a while before the…