You may remember that the Food Standards Agency recently updated its advice on eating game shot with lead. And you may remember that BASC (see link) and the Countryside Alliance (see link) trotted out some outrageous nonsense about there being more lead in chocolate than in the meat of game that had been shot with…
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Waging war
Today is Remembrance Sunday and this year it falls on the 11th day of the 11th month. The Second World War was the deadliest conflict in human history but I was surprised to learn that the First World War was ‘only’ the sixth deadliest. Are you wearing a poppy? It’s interesting that we use a…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
Blue-blooded squirrels in Cornwall?
Everyone likes red squirrels – I know I do. And everyone would like to see red squirrels return to their widespread former distribution, even if that meant seeing the back of the non-native grey squirrel – I know I would. I’ve said this before, and it momentarily caused a stir, ‘If I could click my…
Just a thought for Caroline Spelman
The political life is a somewhat harsh one. One moment you can be at the top of the tree and the next you are almost nowhere. If you lose your ministerial job then suddenly your views don’t count and your successor’s ears are the ones into which everyone seeks to whisper. I always used to…
Guest blog – Ashes to ashes – Peter Marren
Like you, I expect, I cannot imagine what the landscape will be like in, say, ten years’ time. My window on the world is in Ramsbury, in the upper valley of the Kennet in Wiltshire. We have long been used to dying trees. Death took all our mature elms long ago, and they have gradually…
Haiku
Do you know the story of the Wake Island rail? It lived, guess where?, Yes! on Wake Island and nowhere else. Wake Island is a small Pacific island and the Wake Island rail was a small flightless rail. When Japanese soldiers arrived on Wake Island there were rails, after they left there were no rails. …
How many is best?
What is the best number of people to go birdwatching together? I’ve been pondering this question and discussing it with my birding companions and I have made up my mind – but what do you think? Now I expect you’ll ask what ‘best’ means and what ‘go birdwatching’ means – because you are that…
Desert Island Naturalists
I am a big fan of Desert Island Discs. As the theme tune comes on I have usually organised my late Sunday mornings so that I can listen in peace to the guest and their choice of music. Sometimes I get bored after a while but usually I love it! This programme has been a…
Ralph Underhill cartoon