Oscar writes: I took this at the start of 2013 when we had snow in London. Luckily it fell on a weekend so I could spend all my time trying to find the foxes to photograph. On this morning it took me a couple of hours before I came across one, but after that it…
BLOG POSTS
Sunday book review – Urban Peregrines by Ed Drewitt
I like this book – it’s clearly written, has lots of interesting facts and some cracking images. It took me a while to ‘get’ the cover – that road sign – you’re probably quicker than I am. This is a good book about a bird which represents a conservation success story. Peregrines are much commoner…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Please sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and make it your e-petition too
Arguments to make you pause before signing this e-petition
I’d like you to sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in England please. However, I’m not going to make out that all grouse moor owners, managers or gamekeepers are evil and hateful. I quite like quite a few of them, personally. I can’t understand what they get out of shooting Red Grouse but…
10 reasons not to sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting
My e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting has attracted quite a few signatures – I don’t know exactly how many, by now, as this blog was written on Tuesday and I have been travelling in the north of England and Wales since then… How mysterious…. [actually even the north of England has wifi these days…
Everyone loves the Hen Harrier – don’t they?
The science suggests that there should be a lot more Hen Harriers in the UK uplands than there are at the moment. Let’s just take Scotland for the moment. The science says there should be c1650 pairs (I have taken the central point of an estimate and then rounded it) in Scotland on the basis…
Ten reasons why you should sign an e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in England
Ten reasons why you should sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. You are a vegetarian or vegan (see here for one point of view) You are against wild birds being used as ‘living targets’ for ‘sport’ You are against the artificially very high densities of Red Grouse that are produced for grouse-shooting…
The Hen Harrier – some biology
There is a lot of nonsense talked about the Hen Harrier -and about everything else in the world I guess. Let’s hope I am not going to add to it. Here’s my take on the biology of the bird. What they eat: Hen Harriers eat lots of things. The Langholm study showed that the density…
An open letter to the RSPB Chairman Professor Steve Ormerod
Dear Steve Hi! Happy 60th anniversary of the Protection of Birds Act! It must be around now that you are heading off to Conservation Committee to discuss the RSPB’s conservation work. And then, in July, there will be a Council meeting, I guess, unless things have changed a lot in the last three years (which…
Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the Protection of Birds Act
The 4th June marks the 60th anniversary of a landmark piece of environmental protection – The Protection of Birds Act 1954. It gave full legal protection to almost all British birds, their nests and eggs. It was a progressive piece of environmental legislation. Back in 1954, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of the UK, Chiang…