The spoon-billed sandpiper is one of the most gorgeous birds on the planet – and also one of the most threatened. With probably only a few hundred pairs surviving and their numbers thought to be decreasing each year it is a bird destined for extinction in the wild – perhaps. ‘Perhaps’ because the Wildfowl and…
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Only a wasp
I went racing at Cheltenham on Friday, on what is called ‘Countryside Day’. My drive across the Cotswolds, often very beautiful at this time of year, was so misty that the autumn colours weren’t showing well at all. As I passed over the railway at Adlestrop I remembered Edward Thomas’s poem but this was no…
Movember
Comments Off on Movember
A valued colleague and friend at the RSPB, Gwyn Williams, is raising money by looking foolish. Please give him some dosh for charity. It’s so good to see Gwyn looking fit and well after his treatment for prostate cancer last year.
Who is all at sea?
The Marine and Coastal Access Act of 2009 was one of the major environmental achievements of the last Labour government but, to be fair, the Shadow Defra team, including Richard Benyon who is now a junior Defra minister, were very supportive of the thrust of the legislation too. At times, the progress of the Act…
Peregrines – moor is fewer.
I see peregrines quite often these days, but it’s usually in the middle of London (like this image is of one in the middle of Manchester) rather than in the uplands where I would only have expected to see them in my youth. This is good – I’m glad they have become commoner and more…
Church leaders
Have you read the report of the St Pauls’s Institute on Value and values? I bet you haven’t, even though it has been in the news quite a lot. Archbisop Rowan Williams’s foreword contains the following words; An ethical approach to economics requires us to move away from the illusion that economics can be considered…
Remembrance of things past?
If you get the chance to go to the Ghosts of gone birds exhibition then do! I had a look yesterday afternoon and I hope to get back for another look before it finishes on 23 November. Ceri Levy the curator and co-creator of the exhibition told me he was very pleased with how busy…
Are you S or D?
Martin Harper wrote an interesting blog last week about S-type conservationists and D-type conservationists. Which are you? The gist (you should read the original to check the details – and read some interesting comments) is that there are conservationists (S for supply) who act for nature in its own right through direct nature conservation action…
The raptor haters? Robin Page.
Robin Page clearly is special. He has issues. When you read his own words it is difficult not to think that he has a lot of pent up anger that needs to spill out now and again (see here and here). And so it comes as no surprise that he is angry about birds of…
Other reading
I’m going to point you in the direction of some other blogs – blogs that I like to read (although not necessarily agree with). But first I’d like to point you back towards a few of my previous blogs and the comments that have accumulated on them. Since I came back from the USA this…