Standing up for Nature
Six years, for two trees/bushes, photographed on the same date. First the Lilac – lots of Hairy-footed Flower Bees this year.
I’ve been out delivering leaflets around my neighbourhood for the Labour candidate in the Corby and East Northamptonshire constituency, Lee Barron. I’ve done this leaflet round quite a few times before but I have noticed that the gradients seem to be getting steeper with the passing years. Also, I’m sure there are more dogs in…
… moth-er. In other words I have a moth trap and I am now gradually becoming addicted to moth trapping. How can one resist when there is the possibility of catching moths like the one above – what a corker! Well, that is the type of thing that birders say about the drabbest of Phylloscopus…
Yesterday evening I attended a poetry award evening in the British Library as one of the three judges of the inaugural Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year competition. The winner was Linda France’s collection of poems, Letters to Katlia, as pictured above – and it was good to hear her reading one of her…
In the previous blog post I looked at my Birdtrack records – clearly birding records – to explore in more detail my carbon footprint from birding. But that was all about my UK birding. Here I’m looking at another aspect of my carbon emissions – my air travel. And I can examine my air travel…
Reading and reviewing (click here) the new book, Low -carbon birding, and particularly the contribution from Nick Moran, made me review my Birdtrack records to reflect on my travel as a birder in the UK. Birdtrack (click here) is a way of keeping your bird sightings in one place where they can be reviewed and…
This newspaper (pages 1-2 and 31-32) has been lining a drawer since before our children were born but it relates to Nicholas Ridley’s plans to privatise the 10 regional water authorities in England and Wales, and thus was a step on the road to the mess that is water and sewerage services and their regulation…
Last weekend I did the second visit to one of my BBS squares. It was later in the allowable time than usual because everything has been later than usual for a while in my life. I wasn’t very optimistic about seeing lots of birds but the aim of the BBS is to record the birds…
It was a bit of a dull day when I did my first visit to one of my two Breeding Bird Survey squares – the sun came out a bit later. But an early morning stroll recording birds cannot ever be dull, can it? I was hopeful that I might add Cattle gret to the…
Three years, the first of which was the glorious spring of lockdown (best), then last year’s cold drear spring (worst) and now this year (middling).