I live in a big village in east Northants that thinks it’s a town, and maybe it is. We number about 8000 inhabitants and I don’t get the impression that the government is particularly worried about what we all think of what they are going to do (although the fact that we are having a…
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Wildlife photographer of the year 2012
This exhibition is always worth a visit – even if it does cost £10 to get in. And nature looks as good as ever! There are some constant favourites – more polar bears and other bears, tigers and foxes, whales and penguins – all deserving of their places as they were striking images. But there…
Guest Blog – Mollusc of the Glen – by Peter Cosgrove
Peter Cosgrove’s passion for pearl mussels began in 1996. He carried out the first national pearl mussel survey and in one of those wonderful moments of happenstance, submitted his final report which recommended full legal protection during a periodic review of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. It had the desired effect and the law was…
Raptor round up
It would be perfectly possible to write about birds of prey, how wonderful they are and their troubled and shortened lives, every day on this blog. I try not to do that because there are other sites that do it so well (raptor politics and raptor persecution Scotland) and because there are other big issues…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
It’s about TB
After the decision to delay the badger-cull pilot study it might be that badgers are breathing a sigh of relief. Except they won’t be because we don’t have in place effective measures to limit the spread of bovine TB in badgers and cattle and from one to the other (both ways!). One huge problem with…
Five years on…
On the evening of 24 October 2007 I was on the train to London and received a phone call from one of my staff. He told me that he had received a report from a Natural England staff member who had just seen two hen harriers shot out of the air on or near the…
Flocking to Snettisham
Last Friday I was up early, even for me, so as to be at Snettisham RSPB nature reserve by 0730 to see one of the UK’s finest wildlife spectacles. And I wasn’t alone as the car park was almost full, even at this early hour. There were around 200 of us wrapped up against the…
RSPBiodiversity?
A while ago the results of a poll on this website suggested that the RSPB should not change its name, but it was only a few hundred people and the reasons for not changing were varied and contradictory. Then at the RSPB AGM there was a question about whether the RSPB was going to change…
Guest Blog – One year on – Jennifer Avery
Jennifer Avery has recently worked for the RSPB in northwest England and will soon start work for the RSPB in southwest England. She has been blogging for a year and this blog appeared on her blog in late September. Follow Jennifer on Twitter as @jennifercavery. I’ve always loved wildlife and I was lucky enough to…