If you read my column, the Political Birder, in Birdwatch (and if not – why not?) then in the current issue you will see that there will be a peaceful protest in the north of England against Hen Harrier persecution on or around the 12 August this year. That article has prompted a steady trickle…
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Guest blog – A very RSPB protest by Danny Heptinstall
Danny Heptinstall is a 24 year old birder, naturalist and aspiring conservationist currently researching Red Kites at the University of Aberdeen (and recent Guest Blogger here). He attended the public protest in Inverness on Saturday afternoon about the recent poisoning incident in Ross-shire. You will already have read here (and here and here) about the…
Oscar Dewhurst – Ptarmigan
Oscar writes: while I was in Iceland on holiday in October I was very keen to see and photograph Ptarmigan, having never seen them before, and had been told you could find them all the way down to sea level. I hadn’t had any luck until one day when I spotted one flying from my…
Sunday book review – Tweet of the Day by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss
For early risers, the few moments at around 6am on BBC Radio 4 for several months has been a date with nature. More specifically, a 90 second date with the song or call of a species of British bird. The birds were the stars, they always are, but a range of well-known birders and naturalists,…
The week in birding by Jonnie Fisk @jonniefisk
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Mark writes: I’ve been lucky enough to see a few spring migrants this week, whilst hearing almost every day that the death toll on Red Kites and Buzzards keeps rising in Ross-shire. This week I added Sedge Warbler, Ring Ousel (in a rabbit-grazed field in east Northamptonshire) and Garganey (in nearby Cambs) to my list…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill @cartoonralph
Most unfairly ignored UK bird?
What is the UK’s most unfairly ignored bird? Well according to you, and your votes, it is the Stock Dove (and I agree with you)! This wasn’t the most popular poll on this blog, but nearly 150 of you responded and this was the result: Stock Dove – 33% Little Grebe – 21% Reed…
Guest Blog – No country for birds? by Peter Rafferty
Peter Rafferty is a poet and sometime geomorphologist, and possibly for something done in a past life, a Carlisle United season ticket holder who has even stood, well sat, in the away end at Nene Park. He is also one of the translators for the LIPU UK English newsletter. E L’upupa piano…
Death toll rises in Ross-shire case
That’s right – 14 Red Kites. This case shows the power of poisons and the vulnerability of raptors that will feed on carrion. You don’t need many people to be putting poisons out in the countryside to make a hole in raptor populations. I saw…
Wuthering Moors 45
This is NE’s response to my FoI/EIR request of 10 March. The answer to Qu4a confirms the ongoing scale of the burning of blanket bog in the English uplands and the fact that it has been consented by NE. The answer to Qu 5 seems rather evasive to me. Qu10 – that’s a lot of…