Go to the Defra website and you will find a map of poisoning incidents in England and Wales over the last five years. Environment Minister Richard Benyon said: “I am appalled that these crimes continue to be committed and I am determined to stamp them out. “Those responsible have no consideration for what they are killing…
BLOG POSTS
Happy Valentine’s day
Apparently, the first bird a woman sees on Valentine’s Day tells her the type of husband she will get. Magpies seem good news – good job they are commoner than ever! Birds of prey seem ones to look out for but maybe crows should be avoided. The first reference to St Valentine’s Day being…
More on the EU budget
Institute for European Environmental Policy. NFU. Martin Harper’s blog. CAPreform.eu Defra website – nothing at all. I am always shocked by the fact that our government doesn’t think it has any obligation to feed back on the results of major EU decisions – like settling the budget for the next five years. It’s hardly surprising…
Feedback
When I sent out my short recent ‘newsblast’ to over 1300 people one of them replied as follows: “No,don’t send me anymore of your crap.When you start considering all bird life instead of just raptors then by all means.I put a bird table up 30 yrs ago,had it full of garden birds untill (sic) the…
Last week’s news
It’s quite difficult to get past the headlines to understand the details of the EU budget agreement. Yes the budget has been capped thanks to some good negotiation by plucky David Cameron but what does that mean – particularly for the environment? I bought the FT, Independent and Guardian on Saturday and found them no…
Miscellany
More birding bits and pieces: After my blog of last week I can now add peregrine to my M1 list (hunting over a field near Luton) and another ‘up-and-about-early’ red kite from the M1 somewhere in Hertfordshire (I think!). Birkbeck: I enjoyed giving a public lecture at Birkbeck on Friday evening – lots of good…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
Did you see the last Attenborough programme of the series on Africa? I missed it on Wednesday (being in an Edinburgh hotel which did not have BBC2 !!) so I’ll be watching Sunday’s repeat. Here are some links to the ivory trade: BBC (Gabon’s forest elephants), eleaid (Asian elephants), National Geographic, Bloodyivory, Centre…
All gummed up – chew on that IMO!
All those auks killed off the south coast of England over the last week or so have been killed by polyisobutene (or PIB) according to analyses done by scientists at the University of Plymouth and confirmed by the Environment Agency, says the RSPB. PIB is currently given one of the lowest hazard classifications under MARPOL…
Every picture tells a story
I recently reviewed the magnum opus by Tim Sands (Wildlife in Trust) which chronicles the first 100 years of the Wildlife Trusts for BBC Wildlife magazine. I picked the book up again recently (which in itself is something of an achievement as it is very heavy) and made a rough note of the species illustrated…
Birding bits and pieces
I’ve done a lot of driving around the country recently – I’ve been collecting motorways. Recently I have ‘got’ M1, M4, M5, M11 and far too much of the M25 as well as glimpses of the M2, M3 and M40 – is there a prize? When you spend a lot of time in a car…