Dear Selfridges I am glad to hear from some of your customers that you are reviewing the sale of Red Grouse in your Food Hall – this is an excellent move on your part. Well done! You are probably aware of the report from the Ethical Consumer magazine which highlights the environmental problems with intensive…
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Natural England – are you still there?
Natural England – for people, for places, for nature. NE, you have been studying Hen Harriers through satellite-tagging for 12 years and yet despite a hard-hitting report A Future for the Hen Harrier in England (2008) you have remained strangely silent about the worsening status of the Hen Harrier in England for six years. In…
Sky and Hope
The information that two young Hen Harriers (named Sky and Hope) have gone missing has been a talking point between Guildford and Sheffield – and beyond! I know that because I was giving a talk near Guildford on Wednesday evening and another in Sheffield on Thursday evening. At each, people were very concerned and surprised…
Sunday book review – National Birds of the World by Ron Toft
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What is your national bird? Come to that – which is your nation? David Lindo is exhorting us all to vote for a National Bird to see whether the Robin remains our top choice so maybe it is worth having a look at what other nations have chosen. Which country has chosen these species as…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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I was pleased to see that FoE are sticking up for beavers. What a shame that Defra are not. Bees, buzzards, badgers, beavers… ‘It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.’ Ansel Adams
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Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is the 21st most-signed of all those e-petitions, on all subjects, directed at any government department, that is still open for signature. It is also in the top 0.5% of the most-signed e-petitions (open or now closed) on the Westminster government website ever. So that’s pretty good –…
Last Mitford sister dies
As I am currently near Chatsworth, I listened with interest to the news of the passing of the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire yesterday. Although I never met her, I did have a letter from her on my office wall for several years. The RSPB had done a huge recruitment mailing, and my name was at…
Vote for Bob
The RSPB would like us to ‘Vote for Bob‘ who appears to be a Red Squirrel. Is Bob promising: an owl for everyone? a Red Squirrel for everyone? nuts for everyone? pointy ears for everyone? no grey days at all? I’m not really sure – Bob is like real politicians in being just a little…
Great twitch
The Isles of Scilly is a place that strange people visit at this time of year in search of rare birds. Stuck 28 miles west of Lands End the islands reach out to the North American continent and provide a landfall for birds swept across the Atlantic on strong winds. However, there are, of course…
Boris aims to lead the shooting party…
…was a headline in the Evening Standard yesterday (Londoner’s Diary). The Tory supporters of Uxbridge are in for a real change when the birdwatching Sir John Randall is replaced by bird-blasting Boris Johnson next May (other candidates are available but may not get a look-in). Boris has been off grouse shooting it seems. A Twitter…