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…
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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…
…and there was more
Yesterday’s blog ended before 9am on Tuesday morning with pine marten off the bucket list. But there was more… I spent more time enjoying the pine forest but then headed off. I stopped at Nethy Bridge and looked for dippers from the attractive stone bridge, but with no luck. Then it was off over the…
Timing
Do you have a bucket list– a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket? I’ve just taken one off my list as I saw a much-wanted species in Abernethy Forest earlier this week. Timing is everything with wildlife isn’t it? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time clearly…
Great new Elizabethan naturalists – thoughts from Mark Avery
This was a fun poll – well, I enjoyed it anyway. I’m not surprised that Sir David Attenborough won – he is an impressive man who has motivated and inspired so many to care for the natural world. He cannot but be a worthy winner. But he didn’t get my vote – that went to…
New Elizabethan naturalists – thoughts from Tom Oliver.
Our poll still has a day to run as I write, so I shouldn’t draw conclusions based on the exact number of votes cast for each of our twelve New Elizabethan Naturalists. What I can say is that I am very glad we did the poll for two main reasons. First, it has been an…
Great new Elizabethan naturalists – the result
With over 800 votes cast, the final rankings were as follows: David Attenborough 270 votes Peter Scott 211 votes Gerald Durrell 111 votes Derek Ratcliffe 89 votes Norman Moore 55 votes Max Nicholson 33 votes Jane Goodall 33 votes David Lack 28 votes Miriam Rothschild 25 votes James Fisher 6 votes Tony Soper 6 votes…
Queen saves countryside, Steve Bell thinks not…
I do like Steve Bell’s Guardian cartoons – they usually make me laugh although I know they won’t be too everyone’s taste. Was this one stimulated by the Sunday Express headline a few weeks ago which stated that ‘Queen saves countryside’? Would cormorant now be added to the list?…
Prof Sir John Lawton says…
…that the Chancellor, George Gideon Oliver Osborne, is a ‘bloody idiot’ on the subject of wildlife protection. Sir John, or actually, I see, John Hartley Lawton, is a Vice President of the RSPB, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a good birdwatcher, was the last chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (deceased), is…
Cormorants are next
In what seems like undue haste, the hunting, shooting and fishing brigade have moved on to cormorants after failing (at least for a while) to get a receptive government department to licence some buzzard bothering. Cormorants are an easier target because they aren’t very pretty. Don’t get me wrong, they are quite pretty (in an…