Standing up for Nature
On Tuesday I spent several hours in the rough but didn’t have anything to complain about. I don’t know Fife that well and enjoyed being shown around by my host for this trip (of whom, more, probably, later). We looked in at the Eden Estuary and admired the seals as a whimbrel flew up the…
My summer holidays are beginning to fall into a familiar pattern. We book an attractive cottage in the West Country which is every bit as nice as it looked on the internet when we arrive and see it in reality. The weather is a bit English, the phone reception is appalling, there’s a nice pub…
After three days at the Bird Fair I could do with a rest but I am on a secret mission to Scotland this week – I’m sure I will be able to tell you about some of it some time, perhaps. Tomorrow’s blog will be about a book that I think that many of you…
We might as well call it the International Bird Fair – I spent a very large part of today talking to friends and colleagues from Spain and the USA. It was good to meet friends from the BirdLife International partner in Spain, SEO, again and other birders from various parts of Spain too. And the…
Another busy day and, with the exception of a shower, another dry one at the Bird Fair. I haven’t yet got as far as Marquees 1 & 2, but I intend to tomorrow. The nice ladies from Plantlife gave me a refreshing elderflower drink as I arrived – you see plants are worth having –…
It’s actually quite hard work enjoying yourself at the Bird Fair – I don’t mean that you can’t enjoy yourself, just that it is a bit knackering. It doesn’t quite have the buzz of the Cheltenham Festival for me but today the period between 0930 and 1730 just whizzed by. I have this strategy of…
Today I’ll be at the Bird Fair (come up and say hello – and perhaps buy a copy of Blogging for Nature from me) but last Thursday I was still on holiday in Dorset having not seen white-beaked dolphin and not seen Adonis blue butterfly. What would I not see next? Arne had already provided…
I’d like to thank all the contributors to the lively debate here over the last week on the way forward in the conflict between grouse shooting interests and the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our cherished raptors. But seriously, thank you for joining in, especially to those from the shooting community. Did we…
Adonis was the subject of a tug of love between Aphrodite and Persephone because of his great beauty. The Adonis blue is pretty good-looking too and restricted to chalk grassland sites such as are to be found in Dorset, so Wednesday, after being stood up by white-beaked dolphins, was Adonis blue day. Butterflies are pretty…
Driven grouse shooting is not without its benefits to the economy and ecology of the uplands although we could argue for years (and have done!) over exactly what are those benefits. The trouble with it is that it is based on the illegal killing of several protected raptor species (most notably, but not exclusively, golden…