All birds are brilliant! It goes without saying, but I’ve said it. But it could just be that some birds are more brilliant than others. A while back, in a blog about cormorants, I said that cormorants were quite pretty really, which might be stretching things a bit, but they wouldn’t come bottom of my…
BLOG POSTS
Joining up the verges
I’ve been paying more attention to the road verges since Sarah Pettegree wrote her excellent Guest Blog here and since Plantlife launched its verges campaign. And so I was more susceptible to making the link between this press release from CPRE about lowering the speed limit in rural areas and the state of our verges. …
The rather diminished Big Butterfly Count?
It’s time for the Big Butterfly Count– good luck! Have you ever thought how beautiful are butterflies? Me too! Then imagine this butterfly without its wings – not so pretty then is it? And I just wonder – will the Bird Fair survive the weather given that the Game Fair has not? And…
Wuthering Moors 23
Natural England spent over £1m of your money pursuing legal action against the Walshaw Moor Estate for alleged breaches (but a mere 43 of them) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Habitats Directive. The alleged offences related to the building of tracks, paths, car parks, grips, ponds, butts and other associated infrastructure for…
40 days of…?
Today is St Swithin’s (or Swithun’s day) and by tradition the weather today will stick with us for the next 40 days. At the moment the sun is shining here in east Northants – I wonder! Whatever the weather, in 40 days the swifts will be largely departed and wader passage will be well underway. …
It’s raining, raining, raining
It’s raining. It’s still raining. And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. G K Chesterton A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain…
Worth a look, and then another look
You can get a sneak preview of one chapter of my new book, and so much more, by walking into your local WH Smith or similar and buying this annual. My article is about bird reintroductions and covers some of the material of Chapter 8 in Fighting for Birds – 25 years in nature conservation….
A bucolic scene
I just had to take a ‘snap’ (although iPhones make a faint buzz rather than a snap) of these flowers, as I have seen so few this year. Where was I, do you think? Answer at ‘end of day’. Answer: thank you for some good guesses, and some well argued thoughts and near…
Wuthering Moors 22
This email exchange shows that the cost of the abandoned legal proceedings by Natural England against the Walshaw Moor Estate were over £1m of taxpayers’ money. This is your money and you have been given no satisfactory explanation for why the case was dropped when a few months earlier NE had been pursuing the Walshaw…
Wuthering Moors 21
This email between Natural England’s Andrew Wood and others (including some recipients whose names have been withheld) contains several matters of interest; Its title – this is the first time the the Secretary of State’s, Caroline Spelman’s, name has appeared to my knowledge in this case. It appears that back in December 2011 this case…