In Spain last week I talked to some environmentalists about the politics of nature conservation in Spain. Some of it sounded quite familiar. They were concerned about the Juncker review of the Birds and Habitats Directives; they felt that their government was not doing enough, and they were nervous about the results of the regional…
Category: EVENTS: BirdFair, HHDay, Game Fair etc
Donana 3 – some special places
The caption to this image (taken by Ed Hutchings – thank you Ed) would have to be, ‘Lord of none of what he surveys’. From the top of this dune in the Coto Donana one could see for miles. Some of Lawrence of Arabia was apparently filmed here. Looking over the marismas one got a…
Donana 2 – the Donana Bird Fair
Yesterday’s blog gave you some good reasons to flock to the Coto Donana in spring – wonderful weather and great birds. But now there is another reason and that is the Donana Bird Fair which this year took place on Friday-Sunday last week at the Dehesa de Abajo which is in the NE corner of…
Donana 1 – a whole bunch of birds
Four days in the Coto Donana in spring sounds a pretty tough gig to you, I guess. But somebody had to do it and so an intrepid band of six of us arrived in Seville, in the rain, last Wednesday prepared to bird until we dropped. Although, in actual fact, we interspersed birding with some…
Open letter to Marc Bolland of M&S
Dear Marc Congratulations on your increased profits and increased share price! It can’t all be due to customers flocking back to you after your decision not to sell grouse meat last year, but I have certainly been doing my bit to increase your profits. Your wise decision not to sell grouse meat in your stores,…
Labour MPs’ take on the Rally for Nature
Here are three examples of responses from Labout MPs to their constituents on the issues raised by the Rally for Nature last week. You can see that each response is clearly a personal one and that’s why I haven’t revealed the identities of the MPs or their constituents. I’d be interested in any further responses…
North West Birdwatching Fair
It was better than fair – it was good. I spoke to lots of nice people, and the very nicest ones bought copies of A Message from Martha too! That included the very nice Mike Dilger. He was speaking at Martin Mere before my talk on Saturday and you couldn’t ask for a better warm-up…
Not tied up in Notts
I spoke at a BTO regional meeting in Nottinghamshire on Sunday, but so did many other people and I enjoy learning new things and being reminded of old things. Chas Holt gave an excellent talk about WeBS (that’s WeBS not Webs, WEBS, WEbs or any other combination!). Have you looked at the excellent WeBS online…
SWLA exhibition
Last week I visited the annual SWLA exhibition. I enjoyed it as much as ever and I recommend it to you if you have a spare half an hour or more in central London over the next few days. Of course, there were some works that I liked a lot more than others – the…
A few things
Here are a few things in brief: the farmland bird index declined in 2013 (as predicted here) – and to their lowest level ever. You are living in a country with fewer farmland birds than at any time in your life. Doesn’t it make you feel good? I’ll blog in more detail on this next…