The following is a write-up, a personal one, that I did for Plantlife, the Wildlife Trusts and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust of a meeting to discuss meadow conservation which was held on 18 July this year. ’When people come to Highgrove and see the flower meadow there they often say that it reminds…
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Keeping the wolf from the door
I’m lucky enough to get the chance to write for money sometimes and that helps to keep the wolf from the door – although I’d quite like to open the door here in east Northants and see a wolf trotting past. That would be quite a shock and a very nice surprise. Here are three…
E-petition passes 16,000 signatures – where is Defra’s response?
A little while before midday yesterday our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting passed the 16,000 signature mark. Thank you to all who have signed it already. This is already, inside three months, the 9th most-signed e-petition aimed at Defra. And there are another seven months to go (there would be nine if it weren’t…
Oscar Dewhurst – Swift
Oscar writes: While I was Minsmere earlier this Spring I spent a lot of time standing on the boardwalk just outside the Island Mere hide waiting for a female Bittern. On one morning there was a large flock of Swifts flying just overhead, and the very strong wind meant that they would stall as they…
Sunday book review – Norfolk Bird Sketches by Robert Gillmor
This attractive book of sketches will remind you, as it did me, of days spent on the north Norfolk coast, at places such as Holme, Titchwell and Cley, looking at birds. But I, and maybe you, look at birds in a different way from the way that Robert Gillmor has looked at birds for getting…
A few updates
Comments Off on A few updates
I’m really pleased that the Hookpods project got to its £100,000 crowd-funding target with days to spare. That is fantastic. With these things, it is all or nothing – £99,999 would not have been enough! Thank you to all readers of this blog who contributed – I’m told by David Agombar that his Guest Blog…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Syngenta do a good thing, albeit belatedly.
Readers of Jeremy Greenwood’s guest blog (4 August) will be glad to hear that he has been granted access to the data obtained in the study that he criticized (see here and here). Watch this space for more on this subject later in the autumn.
A Swift visit to Malmesbury
A couple of weeks ago I popped down to Malmesbury for the official opening of the Waitrose store there (see previous blogs here and here). I’d been down a week earlier too and the changes since the spring, and in that last week, were quite amazing. ‘Just in time’ hardly covers it! Whereas…
Four Bee-eater chicks fledge on Isle of Wight
Good news from the Isle of Wight – the pair of Bee-eaters (the first to nest successfully in the UK since 2002) have fledged four young. That’s pretty good going out of the seven eggs they normally lay. Let’s hope the next few weeks are sunny and insect-filled and they fuel-up for their journey south…