The latest in the ‘You Forgot the Facts, Sir Ian’ campaign is reaching out to the farming community. Farmers are being asked to sign up to an error-riddled anti-RSPB letter, and when 100 of them do, then their names will be published. I’ve always wanted a list of the 100 most ecologically illiterate and rabid…
Category: Farming
We’re all farmers now
It must be terribly difficult being the Prince of Wales – but perhaps a little less difficult than being many of his potential future subjects. HRH writes in Country Life magazine this week about why we must put a value on the countryside. It is in these wide-ranging thought pieces that HRH seems least thoughtful…
Liz Truss – do one good thing
The continuing decline of farmland birds in our countryside (red line) is a clear sign that we are farming unsustainably (there are plenty of other signs – but this is a pretty good one). Yes 2012-13 was a pretty bad period for resident birds (and we are mostly talking residents here) but hardly one out…
Hope continues to rise
Every picture tells a story – and this one tells a big story. This graph shows the farmland bird index at the RSPB’s Hope Farm and in England as a whole. It shows a slow, steady decline in England altogether (blue line) but a massive overall rise (red line) at Hope Farm. Read more about…
Disease implicated as a cause of Turtle Dove decline – a bit.
The Turtle Dove is a lovely bird but is declining dramatically in the UK but also in many other parts of Europe. Although one of the more dramatic problems it faces is being shot by hunters on migration, particularly unsportingly (and illegally) on spring migration, this has never seemed to me to be likely to…