Further to this morning’s blog on DEFRA admitting to being clueless about where the 40cm peat (that they claim they are wanting to protect) can be found, here is another perplexing information response to the talented Guy Shrubsole. I’ve missed a few things out of the fairly long response but not anything material as far…
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DEFRA #omnishambles publishes review of general licences
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Wild Justice challenged general licences in England in winter 2019 Natural England withdrew those licences in spring 2019. DEFRA reintroduced very similar licences in summer 2019. DEFRA held a consultation on general licences in autumn 2019. DEFRA published the consultation responses and its views on them in spring 2021. And they represent pretty poor analysis…
DEFRA #omnishambles doesn’t have a clue – for peat’s sake!
In response to an information request about DEFRA’s knowledge of peat resources, following their scandalously abject policy measure to restrict burning on peatlands, this was received (not by me, I am grateful to the excellent and talented Guy Shrubsole). The most interesting paragraph, although it is all riveting of course, is this one: We do…
British Wildlife April 2021
This is a particularly good issue of the almost always particularly good British Wildlife. From Peter Marren, arguing for Swanscombe Peninsula to be protected, to Twitcher in the Swamp demonstrating that he (is Twitcher a he? I believe so) has supernatural powers to write about nature conservation in a sardonic but meaningful way, it is…
Six weeks and 114,000 signatures
We’re not quite half way in the life of this petition supported by just about all the wildlife and environmental groups in England (it is largely, not completely, an English matter but that doesn’t prevent any UK resident helping wildlife in England). But I would say that we are not yet half way to respectability…
Sunday book review – Butterflies by Martin Warren
Arguably, there are too many natural history books published these days – but this isn’t one of the surplus. This is an excellent read and packed full of information from an acknowledged expert of many years standing. Martin Warren is the former Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation (I was actually on the interview panel which…
Tim Melling – Bar-tailed Godwit
Tim writes: the two British Godwits are easy to tell apart if you see them in flight. Black-tailed Godwit has a black tail and a huge white wing stripe whereas this Bar-tailed Godwit has a barred tail and no wing stripe, rather like a Curlew. The names of both of these birds were coined in…
Saturday cartoons by Ralph Underhill
There are now just two Saturdays before this blog goes into a much reduced state of activity (see here). Today and last Saturday Ralph and I have chosen some of our favourites of his cartoons that have appeared here over the years. There are a lot to choose from: Ralph’s first cartoon here was in…
Garden thoughts
A flip side of being able to nip down to Stanwick Lakes regularly this year (see yesterday’s blog), unlike last year, is that I spend less time tuning in to Spring in the garden. But, it has recently been so cold , it’s the wind you know, that sitting in the garden is currently less…
Spring uncoiling at Stanwick Lakes
This Spring is different from last in so many ways. Every Spring is different, but each has Hope written through it. It’s a time when things get better – the days get longer, they get warmer, and the natural world springs into a greater abundance of sound and colours each day. As far as Nature…