St Martha is the patron saint of cooks – and this is her day. Page 148 of A Message from Martha will give you details of stewing, baking, frying and broiling of Passenger Pigeons – but first, catch your Passenger Pigeon, which might be a tad difficult today. Yesterday I saw the proofs of my…
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Guest Blog – Pop songs and pigeons by Karla Kane of The Corner Laughers
The Passenger Pigeon went extinct in 1914, the same year the Great War began. To commemorate the centenary of those two events, my band, The Corner Laughers, has released an ode to the last Passenger Pigeon, Martha, in the style of a First World War-era song (but with synthesizers, for no good reason, really). …
Hen Harrier Day update
Not a great deal of news this week. We are ‘good to go’ for the event at Fairholmes Visitor Centre at 10am on 10 August. This event is FULL – the car park is likely to be full to overflowing and there is no chance of extra capacity. If you can come by bus, or…
Bee-eaters on IoW
The National Trust has announced that there is a pair of Bee-eaters (the only bird with three consecutive ‘e’s in its name? Probably not, though I can’t think of another) nesting on the Isle of Wight. As someone who spent six summers studying bee-eaters in the Camargue, I must say I am delighted. The birds…
Letter to my MP – please ask Ed to join the Hen Harrier thunderclap
To Andy Sawford MP Dear Andy I haven’t written to your for a while. I thought you deserved a bit of a rest from me and I know you weren’t too pleased that I voted Green in the euro-elections so I’ve been keeping my head down. However, as I’ve always said, you can rely…
Oscar Dewhurst – Hoatzin
Oscar writes: Hoatzin were one of the most common birds around the oxbow lakes in the lowlands. They would perch on the bushes surrounding the lake in small groups, and usually allowed a fair close approach before clumsily flying off. Nikon D300s, Nikon 200-400mm f4 VR
Join the Hen Harrier ‘thunderclap’
‘Thunderclaps’ occur when lots of people sign up to the same message on social media and it is then automatically sent out to all their followers (on Twitter), friends (on Facebook) and ‘whatevers’ (on tumblr – sorry, I don’t have a clue about tumblr). The message for Hen Harrier Day is simply ‘We’re missing our…
A good week for the friends of the Hen Harrier
Comments Off on A good week for the friends of the Hen Harrier
It’s difficult to keep up – there’s so much going on: Severn Trent say ‘yes’ to Hen Harrier Day in Peak District. Hen Harrier Day in Peak District reaches capacity – any more attendees will jam the car parks… August Birdwatch has ‘Stop killing our Harriers’ on cover. M&S shelve plans to sell Red…
Sunday book review – England’s 100 best views by Simon Jenkins.
I bought this book because I like views, I like Simon Jenkins’s writing, I admire and respect him as an intellect and I disagree with him quite a lot about some things (although I agree with him a lot about others). If this book had been written by another I would have been less interested…
Does driven grouse shooting rely on criminal activity?
There are many reasons to be opposed to the intensive management of our uplands to provide high-cost days shooting. But let us set aside the arguments on water quality, destruction of blanket blogs, carbon loss and the scale of legal killing of wildlife, and think only of the illegal killing of birds of prey –…