I was quite shocked by Owen Paterson’s performance on the Today programme on Tuesday in response to the Nature Check report (click here to listen, at 01:34 and 17 seconds). That is, shocked in the sense of outraged rather than surprised. The gist of Paterson’s comments was that the views of the 41 organisations signing…
BLOG POSTS
Not such a bad idea…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Atlas – is launched!
The official launch of the Bird Atlas 2007-2011 was yesterday evening at the Royal Society. The room was packed with past and current BTO staff, partners from Birdwatch Ireland and the SOC, former Atlas organisers including Tim Sharrock, Peter Lack and David Gibbons, sponsors, BTO Regional Representatives (including the excellent Northants BTO RR), the editor…
50 years
I spend a lot of my time these days trying to persuade those who love nature to become more politically active. I’m often told that all politicians are the same: they are not. They never were, and they never will be. …
Adverts
Have a look at these two advertisements – they are very different in what they say about nature. Toys ‘R’ Us advertisment. Chipotle advert. Which did you like best? You may have noticed that adverts have appeared in the right hand sidebar of this webpage. I’ve not been terribly keen on the idea of having…
Bird Atlas – Conservation successes, writ large
If you want an example of landscape-scale nature conservation then look at the maps for Red Kite – or in many cases, just look out of the window and see a Red Kite! From the first breeding Atlas to this one the Red Kite has ceased to be a solely Welsh bird in Britain and…
Bird Atlas – Farmland birds
Pictures can get messages across better than words sometimes. As one flicks through the pages of this Atlas one keeps seeing farmland species with shrinking distributions. But the key to truly appreciating the scale of what is happening to these familiar birds is to look at the maps of change of relative abundance. Time after…
New Networks for Nature
I attended the fifth New Networks for Nature meeting in Stamford on Friday and Saturday. It’s a different type of meeting – refreshingly different. Where else would you get organic food for lunch, haikus, a panel debate with leading thinkers on environmental matters, the President of the SWLA, three talks about non-native/introduced/alien species, some young…
Bird Atlas – Winter
Winter really isn’t as interesting as the breeding season – but it’s quite interesting. Most resident passerine species have very similar distributions in the winter to those in the summer. That may sound obvious, but it needn’t necessarily be so, need it? Our Jackdaws and Chaffinches could all move to different areas of the country…