Interest is certainly growing in Hen Harrier Day – 10 August 2014. This event, to protest (peacefully and legally) against the illegal killing of Hen Harriers will take place in Lancashire (though I don’t know much about that), Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire and Derbyshire. I have the challenge of organising the Derbyshire event. I have quite…
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Plants
At the weekend I became a volunteer for Plantlife and took part in their Wildflowers Count survey I had to walk across an allocated 1km square and record which plants out of a list of 200 I saw. Luckily, the list has such challenging species as Holly, Hawthorn, Common Nettle, Ivy and Daisy so I…
Hen Harrier Day
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I was a bit nervous parking my car with its rear tyres overlapping the double yellow lines. Most of the car was OK but those rear tyres were on the double yellows. And I was parking outside the police station. I went into the cop shop, I won’t say which one (it’s good to keep…
Upland balance
Last week I spent two enjoyable days at Newton Rigg at a conference on the future of the uplands. The two days were quite enjoyable and very interesting. I may write a blog or two about the conference because it was so interesting. Hen Harriers were mentioned a few times even before my talk, the…
Oscar Dewhurst – Mistle Thrush
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Oscar writes: At the beginning of 2013 I spend a couple of days photographing an ear-full of Waxwings (yes that’s actually the collective noun for them!). One bird that wasn’t pleased to see them was this Mistle Thrush, which tried its best to shoo them away. It was to no avail though, as within four…
Crex! Crex! Crex! Crex!
The Corncrake was easy, the chips were difficult. I didn’t ‘need’ a bag of chips but I did want a bag of chips. Yesterday was a lovely sunny day and I’d spent quite a lot of it out in the sun enjoying nature. I was listening, unsuccessfully, for Turtle Doves at a local farm before…
Crex! Crex! Crex!
I am going out to listen for Corncrakes. There will not be a blog first thing tomorrow morning. I have heard Cuckoos in two places today. I’m pretty sure there are more of them around this spring/summer than there have been for several, many, years. Quite a few people seem to agree, as evidenced by…
The week in birding by Jonnie Fisk
Don’t you think that birds are amazing? And don’t you think that Jonnie is very talented?
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Branching out
You know how keen I am on plants – I wouldn’t want to walk on anything else. And so, it may come as some surprise that I am quite excited about starting to do some plant monitoring. There – I’ve said it. I promised the nice people at Plantlife last autumn that I would give…