This book takes us through Rob Sawyer’s life and the birds he has seen, missed and misidentified. The title refers to the fact that Sawyer regards himself as a cross between a ‘dude’ and a ‘birder’, and that his life list reached 344 species. I don’t know Sawyer but he comes across as a reasonable…
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Saturday Cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Can you do me a favour please? I have just installed ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ buttons on this website (I’ve been trying for ages but now I have succeeded). You should see them on every blog post and every comment made on each blog. Please use them, as the feedback is interesting and may influence the…
Butterfly Conservation – flying high!
The autumn issue of Butterfly came through the door yesterday, and with it Butterfly Conservation’s Annual Review for 2012/13. Both are so well-produced and interesting that I have read them already. I highlighted the last issue of the magazine as being superb, and I’m not going to do it three times a year (though…
Why we should care about Pandas…and all that jazz.
Why should we care about Pandas? This is a big question to which there are lots of answers, all of which raise more questions. I’ve never seen a Panda in the wild (and I’m not, honestly, that bothered about seeing one) and I can’t recall ever seeing one in a zoo either. If…
A plague around all our houses?
You have to smile a little at the enthusiasm with which the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph (not online) trumpet the problems caused by ‘alien’ species. The ‘battle to stop foreign invaders killing off native British wildlife’ is costing £1.7bn a year apparently, including £70m to get rid of Japanese Knotweed ahead of the Olympics….
Nicholas Watts wins Nature of Farming award.
Congratulations to Nicholas Watts of Vine House Farm who is this year’s winner of the Nature of Farming award. Vine House Farm is pleased, the RSPB is pleased, Butterfly Conservation is pleased and I am very pleased for Nicholas. Nicholas was at the Bird Fair, as he always is, and I had a chat with…
Having a day off
Pheww! I think I’ll go out for a walk.
Sunday Book Review – Tracks and Signs by Lars-Henrik Olsen
This book covers animals and birds (birds are animals!) of Britain and Europe (Britain is part of Europe!). It’s quite a good book. Because it covers the whole of Europe you will learn how to spot signs of Musk Ox or White Stork in your locality. I don’t know much about identifying species from their…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
My thanks to Ralph for this cartoon – his idea, not mine. Monday is the day when I send in the manuscript of ‘A message from Martha‘ to Bloombury and everything is on track. I hope they like it. I’ve been liaising with the artist who is producing the cover – looking good to me…
Whales, spiders and viruses
931 people took part in this 4-question poll (and lots of you emailed me about it too). It was all about choices – if you could save a species, which species would you save? You were put in a position where ‘all of them’ wasn’t a possible answer and so, perhaps, our choices (because mine…