My column in the November Birdwatch magazine is on the subject of hen harriers and their persecution by grouse moor managers. Rather than tell you what it says I’d like to tell you that Birdwatch is asking your opinion on the subject. Is it time for a change of tack by the wildlife conservation organisations…
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CFE
I wonder how the Campaign for the Farmed Environment is going? This is the Big Society alternative to regulating farming to replace the environmental benefits of set-aside. It’s difficult to tell how it is going from the Campaign website. Minister Jim Paice will have to decide how it is all going before Christmas in order…
CAP
I’ve been thinking about the proposed CAP reform and chatting to a few people about it too. The attempt to move towards more equal payments across the EU cannot be other than fair – probably. This is the agricultural equivalent of the idea of contraction and convergence. If it were decided to do the same…
Harriers in The Field
The November issue of The Field, that’s the one with a man in tweed with a gun and a couple of dogs (doesn’t necessarily narrow it down that much?) has some excellent articles in it. You can get some tips on brushing up your ability to bring down high pheasants and then how to cook…
A grain of truth
The dry spring weather in England (while I was driving through the rain in the USA) prompted fears about the grain harvest which, it is good to record here, have proved to be largely unfounded. As in any year there have been winners and losers across the country but the UK wheat yield is estimated…
Raptor haters (?) nominated for Fields Medal
In their most recent outburst of anti-raptor letters the Daily Telegraph publishes a mathematical breakthrough deserving recognition. A letter states ‘ There are an estimated 80,000 sparrowhawks in Britain. They require at least one kill per day. The arithmetic is simple and compelling: 80,000 multiplied by 365 equals more than 29 million dead birds a year.‘….
Importing diseases
The government is about to spend a pittance on a very serious problem – but it should be celebrated as a start. Our trees are under threat from imported diseases – perhaps from some diseases that stand a better chance of becoming established under new climate scenarios. So Defra and the (unreconstructed) Forestry Commission have…
A tale of three warblers
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I find that I carry British Birds around with me for ages before I get around to reading it and so this blog is about the September issue which contains the report of the Rare Breeding Bird Panel. The contrasting fortunes of three warblers struck me as I read through the text; Cetti’s, Savi’s and…
How social is your charity?
A fairly recent ranking of how UK charities use social media makes interesting reading. There is a league table – we all love league tables – which puts the Royal Airforces Association as the 100th charity and Cancer Research as number one. On this list the National Trust is #7, the RSPB is #13, WWF…
Chaos theory – what happens when a butterfly doesn’t flap its wing?
The government and opposition argue about how to manage the economy. They agree that cuts are needed (although the size of the cuts is at issue) but the route to growth is in dispute. If you cut and cut will the economy stagnate? Many small businesses, including small NGOs, are worrying about how public spending…