I have a love-hate relationship with daffodils. Our wild daffodil Narcissus pseudonarcissus is a native species (although even that is somewhat doubtful and disputed) whose world range stretches south from Britain to Spain and Portugal and east to Germany. It is a woodland plant that occurs in carpets that add splashes of spring yellow to…
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Mine’s a pint of Hen Harrier
Get your Hen Harrier here from the excellent Bowland Brewery. And what might Prince Charles have said when necking a Hen Harrier?
GM crops
Genetic modification after Brexit is now being discussed and I’ve just listened to Princess Anne’s opinions on Farming Today. What she said wasn’t very controversial despite all the hyping by the BBC yesterday. The benefits of genetic modification were all hypothetical ones in the future rather than ones that are available now and being held…
Merlins in the Lammermuirs
In the current issue of British Birds there is a paper on a long-term study of Merlins on grouse moors in the Lammermuirs which makes an interesting read (as do many other pages in the journal). Data were collected over a span of 31 seasons (with that break in data for the Foot-and-Mouth year…
Closing the day after tomorrow
Chris Packham’s e-petition asking for a moratorium on shooting of declining waders to allow some proper research to be done on any potential impacts of shooting is entering its last couple of days. I’d love to see it gain a few more signatures before it closes, even though it has done pretty well, so if…