Number 1: I spent five minutes in the garden, looking at my ‘meadow’ and ended up looking at a Meadow Brown (so it must be a meadow, mustn’t it?). Aren’t butterflies lovely? But wouldn’t they look quite ugly if they didn’t have such amazing wings? Have you ever looked at a butterfly’s face and body? …
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BB
As a boy, I loved the books of Denys Watkins-Pitchford (who signed off his writing as ‘BB’ after the size of shot used for shooting geese) so when I saw that there was a small exhibition of his ‘Life and Works’ at Lamport Hall, across the road from where he had lived as a boy…
Talking to the deaf
Last week the RSPB wrote to the Moorland Association thus; Amanda Anderson Director The Moorland Association 16 Castle Park Lancaster LA1 1YG Dear Ms Anderson The RSPB has always sought to work with the sport shooting community to create grouse moors that are environmentally sustainable and provide a safe home for birds of prey and…
Quite funny really
I don’t quite know what to make of the report concerning the BBC’s impartiality in reporting on rural affairs. Maybe you should read it for yourself and see how many times it makes you laugh. It made me chuckle quite a lot. Apparently the RSPB get a lot of air time because they are good…
Hen Harrier day update
Hen Harrier Day – 10 August 2014 – is an opportunity for the public to express their concern over the widespread, illegal killing of Hen Harriers. Action is being planned for five localities in the north of England for that day: the Forest of Bowland, Cumbria, Northumberland, Yorkshire and the Peak District. This is the…
Guest blog – The UK’s youth conservation movement is happening, and we’re already beginning to howl by Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper is a 20 year old amateur naturalist, writer, zoology student at the University of Exeter Cornwall Campus and avid badger watcher. He has written both whimsical nature writing and ‘proper’ environmental journalism on his personal blog and for The Independent, and is also the editor in chief of his university’s nature magazine ‘Life’….
Oscar Dewhurst – Ringed Plover
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Oscar writes: I came across this adult on the beach at Minsmere. It was running along the top of a ridge so I got ahead of it and took this as it came past me. Nikon D800, Nikon 600mm f4 AFS-II, Nikon 1.4x TC
Sunday book review – Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel
There is grass, and there are meadows. They aren’t the same. As you travel around the countryside, particularly in the west of Britain (although, as in other respects, the country used to be less polarised than it now is), you will see a lot of grass. It looks pretty, or, at least, quite pretty, but…
One month down – eleven more to go!
At 08:34 this morning my (our!) e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting completed its first month and had accumulated 5880 signatures. That is really good progress – and there are 11 months to go. Our e-petition is in the top 1.5% of most-signed of all e-petitions, on all subjects, on the government website and still…
Saturday cartoon – how the media work by Ralph Underhill
Last week when I did a short piece on the Today programme I was thinking something similar to Ralph – along the lines of wildlife stories are the fluffy ones. The media coverage of environmental issues seems to have declined in quality over recent years and that must be partly because there are fewer and…