I mentioned Give as you Live in a blog before Christmas and it still seems like a very easy way to raise money for charity. If I download ‘something’ while I am shopping online (don’t ask me how it works – I just click) then my chosen charity (which happens to be the RSPB) gets…
BLOG POSTS
Wet enough for you? Ralph Underhill cartoon
To do
This morning’s blog has attracted lots of comments – as raptor-related blogs almost always do. If you feel strongly about this issue then why not write to your MP about it. There is an excellent letter in the comments to this morning’s blog (by MK) to his (her? I suspect his) MP Alistair Burt (who…
Why raptor persecution is different
There has been a little burst of correspondence in The Independent over gamekeepers (and raptor persecution)(here, here, here). I note that one of the correspondents, Reece Fowler, crops up in quite a lot of places (including this blog) saying how nice gamekeepers are and how misunderstood (see here, here, here). I thought that Mr Fowler’s…
Patch work
The natural world is a source of great wonder to me. I enjoy being out there with my wellies on and binoculars around my neck. I enjoy thinking about species I may see or learn about in future. And I like re-living those special wildlife experiences. And I like having a local patch, Stanwick Lakes,…
Food for thought
I expect you have eaten well over the break and are probably, like me, a bit podgier than a couple of weeks ago – or maybe not? If there is anything that might put you off your food it is the sound of the President of the NFU going on about the need for greater…
Wildlife checklist
The start of a new year might be seen as a chance for a new start – although so could the start of every minute, sentence, and action. In that spirit, I will aim to give you a suggestion for something you could do every day of 2013 to help wildlife in some way. Sometimes…
The greatest European birds?
By Andreas Trepte (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons I think the following 11 bird species are the only ones which breed in every one of the EU’s 27 countries: kestrel, quail, moorhen, swift, swallow, house martin, reed warbler, spotted flycatcher, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet. My source of information is ‘Birds in Europe: population…
Which birds are the greatest Europeans?
Tomorrow is the 40th birthday of the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU, formerly European Community, formerly European Economic Community). When the UK joined the EU, with Denmark and Ireland, we brought the EU to a gang of nine (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). Now the EU is a gang of…
BTO Winter Thrush Survey
Last week I did my Big Society thing for the BTO winter thrush survey. There was a spell of what we will have to call fine weather in the morning and I was out looking for blackbirds, song thrushes, mistle thrushes, redwings and fieldfares, and indeed waxwings and starlings, and indeed anything else that might…