This is a book that many people ought to read. I read most of it before I went to the USA and then read all of it, some of it several times, on my return. I was reading it again at 6am yesterday morning in the back garden of the Old Mill Hotel in Salisbury…
BLOG POSTS
If this post appears…
…then it means that I am off looking for purple emperors. Meanwhile, have you voted in my poll and commented on what you think of the RSPB’s new TV advert? The poll will close fairly soon as the results are pretty clear (to me) already so do have your say.
It’s a year of two halves
I started the year with a wildlife checklist for the first six months of the year and I can report alternating success. I failed to see Mandarin ducks in January, a bunch of migrants in March or Duke of Burgundy butterflies in May, but I succeeded with drake smew in February, nightingales in April and…
Should we be grateful?
Sometimes governments say they are going to do 20 daft things (they never put it quite like that) and then only do 10 daft things and they expect us all to be grateful. There ought to be a word for it – a Greek word – maybe there is – for a victory which you…
Wuthering Moors 31
Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I submitted a request for information to Defra about their response to the RSPB complaint to Europe over the Walshaw Moor affair. I received no…
The amazing needless tale of a swift
You couldn’t make it up. A rare bird, not seen in the UK for 22 years is spotted by a string of experienced birders in the north of Scotland and the twitching community get on the move. And then the bird, a member of a group that one would put near the top of one’s…
State of Nature report
I’m sorry I missed the launch of the State of Nature report by a large group of NGOs as I think it would have been a very enjoyable event. A bit like a gathering of old friends at the deathbed of UK wildlife – determined to have a good time, mention what a great person…
Sunday Book Review – A World in One Cubic Foot: Portraits of Biodiversity by David Liittschwager
This book is quite different and very interesting. It was put together by recording, in six different habitats, for a 24-hour period in each, the species that passed through a metal frame of 1-foot dimension. Then Liittschwager photographed a whole range of species that had occurred within that metal frame in that time-frame. It’s a…
Ralph Underhill cartoon – Sacred?
You do have to wonder where on Earth, or even in the EU, the CAP gets a good press. Here is a round-up of UK views: IEEP – Environment undermined in CAP deal CAPreform.eu – a damp squib for CAP reform which does nothing to shift towards ‘public money for public goods’ The Wildlife…
well done rspb
the rspb has a new logo – have you noticed it on the rspb website? it’s been long-heralded and it has finally arrived and it’s…well it’s…almost exactly the same as the old one. the main change is that the letters, r, s, p and b, are now in lower case. that’s very trendy. i like…