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…
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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…
Congratulations to Martin Spray
Martin Spray is one of the lower-profile Chief Executives in the wildlife conservation business so it was very good to see his name in the New Year honours list. Martin told me: ‘On a personal basis I’m both overwhelmed and proud. But I’m a part of an amazing team at WWT and it is wonderful…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
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The end of the rhino? US military drones have been responsible for a large number of civilian deaths for every terrorist target. This should be worrying the rhinos in the Kruger National Park.
The Don Juan of the listing world
Tom Gullick passed the 9000 mark in 2012 – that’s quite a few conquests. I speak of course of the number of birds that he has had. Gullick has seen 9000 of the world’s approximately 10,500 bird species – the 9000th being Wallace’s fruit dove. That is quite an achievement but I hope 81-year-old Gullick…
Partridges up a tree
I’m pretty sure that most readers of this blog won’t be looking in pear trees for their partridges but even looking around the edges of arable fields you may struggle to see many of them. Despite all the excellent work that has been done to study the grey partridge (much of which is summarised in…
Let’s go out and hunt some wrens
It’s good to get some exercise but the old custom of hunting a wren on this day is not one I particularly want to continue. Wrens are little but interesting – and noisy! Wrens are often polygynous and the males build the nests to try to attract one (or more) mates. They are packed full…
You could be eating eagles…
Are you sitting down to eat a turkey later today? Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the USA instead of the actual choice of the bald eagle. He wrote to his daughter thus: “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our…