Dr Rosemary Mason and Dr Derek Thomas are long-standing environmentalists One of us has just returned from Orkney, where for the first time, we found the rare great yellow bumble bee (Bombus distinguendus), now restricted to Northern Scotland and the offshore islands. She was leisurely foraging on red clover and garden knapweed on a track…
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See you at the Bird Fair and five campaigning opportunities
It’s about six weeks until the Bird Fair (and two weeks until the Game Fair). I hope to be at the Bird Fair on all three days signing copies of my book which will soon be available. One evening after being at the Bird Fair I usually sit outside my house in the garden with…
Not great for butterflies
Last week I was lucky with a pine marten, and some whales, and lots of other wildlife, but this year I haven’t had much luck with butterflies. And butterflies haven’t had much luck either with the cold wet weather. From memory, the only butterflies I have seen this year have been a very few peacocks,…
Where next with England’s forests?
The report of the Independent Panel on Forestry is a good one. I recommend that anyone interested in access, wildlife, trees, public policy, land use and politics should read it. The question for us all, particularly the coalition government, is ‘what next?’. Let’s go back to those distant-seeming days of early 2011 when David Cameron…
Forest Panel’s report published
The final report of the Independent Panel on Forestry has been published. The initial Defra response to the report was fairly warm, and fairly non-committal. Everyone else seems to like it: RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, National Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Save Our Woods, CLA, Royal Forestry Society. Media coverage includes: BBC, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph. Read…
Chris Packham’s secrets
Have you seen Chris Packham’s Secrets of Our Living Planet series? I have to confess to having seen only most of one episode of the three that have been broadcast. My eye didn’t travel further than the football that was on TV and that’s why I have missed them. I caught most of last Sunday’s…
Wildlife Trusts rehabilitated
The Wildlife Trusts, in my opinion, did not distinguish themselves over the issue of public forests and SSSIs in 2010/11. They gave the impression to many of us of having one eye on the main chance and having lost focus on the needs of nature. Let’s put it down to a momentary aberration which we…
Banking on wildlife NGOs
Much has been written, and said, about the dire moral state of banking in the UK. I find it interesting that moving around bits of paper with numbers written on them should be expected to be a profession of high ethical status but in the old days (about 30 years ago) we are told that…
Wuthering Moors 20
We are beginning to shake some of the truth out of Defra over the Walshaw Moor affair. Below I attach four documents received either by myself or others through Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulation enquiries. They are: 1) a letter from the Secretary of the Moorland Association, Martin Gillibrand, to the Defra…
Let’s hear it for the buzzard – and the osprey
I fled Scotland a day early and am now back home – the weather drove me away. I did consider turning up at the Scottish Game Fair on Friday, but standing around in the rain, in a soggy field full of people moaning about buzzards didn’t really appeal to me. I see they will get…