Cheltenham Day 2 – the best day!

The Wednesday of Cheltenham is the best day – easily the best day.  It’s partly the best day because it’s not the first day and it’s not the last day, and the first of the middle two days is bound to be better than the second of the middle two days so, it stands to…

Cheltenham Day 1 – the day of hope!

The first day of the Cheltenham Festival.  The Day of Hope! You’ve lost no money at all and there is everything to play for with plenty of time to add to wins or recoup losses (or indeed to plunge further and further down a slippery losing hill to financial oblivion – but this is the…

Brrrr – that is cold!

This morning I went out for a walk.  I usually do on the Monday before the Cheltenham Festival to get some healthy exercise and to see whether I can see any spring migrants before I disappear to the far side of the Cotswolds for four days of escapism. But today was so cold. So very…

Voting day in the Falklands – but not for penguins or albatrosses.

The human population of the Falklands Islands is voting today (and tomorrow) on their future – whether to remain British or not.  It’s a foregone conclusion that the c1800 adult population of these islands in the south Atlantic will vote to remain British. The Falkland Islands government website has a few pretty photographs of penguins…

The Pope is a Catholic

The Catholic Church has over a billion members across the globe – that’s similar to the population of India and well over twice that of the EU. The next Pope will have considerable influence on the lives of those billion people and therefore the environmental infallibility of the Pope would be a matter of interest…

Signs of spring?

Which of these signs of spring have you seen or heard? Singing birds: song thrush, chaffinch,greenfinch,  great tit, robin, dunnock, blackbird – what else? Flowering plants: snowdrop, aconite, primrose – what else? Flying insects – brimstone, bumblebee – what else? At my local patch of Stanwick Lakes there are still plenty of signs of winter;…

Who runs your NGOs?

This blog follows on from yesterday’s. If there are too many wildlife NGOs (as I believe, and as some of you believe) then how will mergers or closer working come about? There are four major stakeholders involved: the senior staff in the NGOs, their trustees and their members – oh yes, and the Nature whose…