With Euro 2012 now under way our minds will turn to football – won’t they? 13 of the 16 teams are members of the EU and therefore have designated sites as Special Protection Areas under the Birds Directive and Special Areas of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. After the last World Cup where a German…
BLOG POSTS
This cut is a deep one
Today Plantlife launch a campaign to stop councils destroying the wild flowers of roadside verges through inappropriate cutting. The wild plant charity says that they have been inundated by complaints from the public about verges being cut this year just as the flowers appear – giving them no chance to set seed. Plantlife Chief Executive,…
Bring in the bunting…
In amidst all that buzzard-bothering nonsense of the last couple of weeks an important restatement of the absolutely obvious was made: farmland birds have declined steeply and there is no obvious redemption in sight. The most recent science on the subject was a report produced from national bird monitoring schemes across Europe, including the UK,…
Seeing the wood for the clouds
It hasn’t been a great spring, I feel a bit grumpy about the awful weather. It means that I haven’t seen as many butterflies as I would have liked so I’ll be looking to catch up whenever the heat wave strikes (as surely it will). At the weekend I went out looking for Wood White…
Bonfires and beacons
Despite the soggy weather, beacons have been lit across the UK to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. Spare a thought for the inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha and their Jubilee beacon. When the most remote Jubilee beacon in the world was lit, its flames were fuelled by the bodies of invasive species of plants. Work to…
Where are they?
I drove for an hour after dark on a warm evening and hardly saw an insect. None squashed on the car. Where have they gone? And in my blog for the RSPB today I discuss the declines of common wildlife, including farmland birds on both sides of the Atlantic. Our ‘new Elizabethans’ poll is…
Late bits
Apologies, to the two three people who might notice, that this blog is ‘late’ this morning – I went out to listen for corncrakes at the Nene Washes yesterday evening and so was home late – no corncrakes. In a week when the government made a welcome U-turn on buzzard control (which was even mentioned…
New poll – new Elizabethans
You may have noticed that the BBC has compiled a list of new Elizabethans as a celebration of the Diamond Jubilee. 60 men or women who have lived during the Queen’s reign were selected for their contributions to the new Elizabethan age. One of the selected 60 is naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough. If you…
Gone twitching – not really
At the weekend I went on a twitch, looking for a rare bird – except it is just a rarer bird rather than a really rare one. I realised that I didn’t see a spotted flycatcher last year, partly because I was looking at mountain bluebirds instead, and I hadn’t seen one yet this year…
Buzzards – where next?
Yesterday Defra did a U-turn on their proposals to investigate buzzard control for the benefit of pheasants. It’s not easy for governments to do U-turns, although this one is getting the hang of it, and we should thank Defra Minister, Richard Benyon for his re-think. Thank you! The RSPB did a good job, after being…