Mark Robins – a more or less full working life in and around nature NGOs and agencies various – mostly in South West England and especially for the RSPB. Moved to Ireland in 2018 and for a year led the BirdWatch Ireland Conservation & Policy team and is now a freelance natural environment and sustainable…
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Press release – Earth Optimism event, 26 March – 4 April
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Conservation and sustainability experts to highlight the need for optimism in an online celebratory festival. Celebrity speakers, leading conservationists and youth leaders are coming together to deliver stories of hope for our natural world in a free, open-to-all virtual event running from the 26 March to 4 April 2021. Led by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative,…
Ruckus near St Ives
A bit of a ruckus has kicked off in Cornwall over work being carried out at the hotel where the G7 summit is to be held in Cornwall in June. Is the hotel breaking planning regulations, have ancient trees been felled and are Badger setts affected? The G7 meeting is expected to coincide with the…
Just a Buzzard, and another, and he missed the third…
This is a Buzzard, just a Buzzard. The Buzzard is in some ways the least exciting of our birds of prey being less dashing than any of our falcons or Sparrowhawk, and less exciting than eagles, harriers, kites etc. But it’s a nice bird, circling around on thermals and looking for carrion or a range…
Press release – Thriving Hive study
Two weeks – 82,000 signatures
The joint NGO campaign to get a binding target for nature in the Environment Bill has raised over 82,000 signatures; 72,000 in Week 1 and 10,000 in Week 2. That may not sound great, but if you have been paying close attention, as I have, you’ll know that the first four days of the last…
I responded to the DEFRA gamebird consultation
DEFRA’s consultation on their proposed gamebird regulation is a shocking example of pretending to do something worthwhile whilst failing to do anything much at all. This is the worst consultation from government I have ever seen – it is so unshamefacedly biased. If we hadn’t all got used to it by now it would be…
Sunday book review – Out and About, Discovering British Wild Flowers by Deidre Shirreffs
This is a book allegedly aimed at 6-12 year olds but I found it suited me fine. Each year I tell myself, with less and less conviction each year, that I’ll learn a few more plants and I try, but somehow each Spring finds me re-learning the same species over again. This simple photographic guide…
Sunday book review – Birds of Lincolnshire, by Lincolnshire Bird Club
If you live in Lincolnshire you will want to own this book and it will be an invaluable reference source for your everyday birding for years to come. This volume follows a 1989 predecessor, and much has changed and occurred in the last 30+ years. It appears that this book was conceived as a way…
Tim Melling – Weasel
Tim writes: I know this isn’t a competition winner but it is an extremely difficult subject to photograph, especially carrying prey. I was out for a walk locally on 11 October when I saw something moving on the track some way ahead. A quick glance through binoculars and I’d identified it as a Weasel that…