I recently received this email from an RSPB member and keen member of a local RSPB group. ‘I have just finished reading your book ‘Inglorious’, which I found very informative. I had no idea that driven grouse shooting had such a deleterious effect on wild life, especially on birds of prey, and I now would…
Category: AUTHOR: Reflections, Inglorious, Message from Martha, Remarkable Birds etc
A reader’s letter
This was a lovely email to get – and is just the impact that I hoped Inglorious would have with some of its readers. Hi Mark Just finished reading your book. Thought it brilliant – particularly chapter six, The sunlit uplands. I’m sending this just to re-emphasise (what you must already know!) that your campaign…
Debate on floods (updated with links and quotes)
I watched the opposition day debate on the floods with interest – every minute of it. There were quite a lot of MPs, of both main political parties, taking the time to praise their constituents and to ask for promises of government money. Fair enough. Some of them were more subtle and convincing than others….
27,000! And an offer
Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting passed 27,000 signatures yesterday evening. It has accrued 2000 signatures in the last month or so which is pretty good going. The e-petition closes on 21 January (I’m not sure what time on that day!) and so we are entering the finishing straight. This is pretty good going,…
2015 – the Hen Harrier year in pictures
The conflict between driven grouse shooting and Hen Harriers like Henry (or rather, not very like Henry) is a real one. Hen Harriers eat enough grouse seriously to reduce grouse bags when they are shot for fun. Grouse shooting interests illegally kill enough Hen Harriers in the UK to reduce their population to c6-800 pairs…
I will lift up my eyes unto the hills…
‘I will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my floods’ As the Moorland Association brags, 70% of the UK’s drinking water comes from the uplands – so do 70% of the UK’s floods, for water has the habit of flowing downhill. The River Ouse flowing through York, or over York, is…
2015 – a bad year for driven grouse shooting
Few Red Grouse were shot in the UK this year, mainly because of disease and bad weather. But regardless of grouse bags, this was a very bad year for driven grouse shooting and hastened the end of this worthless hobby. The case against driven grouse shooting is that it depends on intensive management that involves…
Another honourable mention for Inglorious
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Thank you to my friend Michael McCarthy for this mention of Inglorious in his nature books of the year. Michael’s own The Moth Snowstorm was in my own similar list, as were two of his choices. Inglorious was also listed in similar lists in Country Life, The Times, Mail on Sunday and The Guardian.
Thank you again Chris Packham
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I had missed this mention of Inglorious in the Mail on Sunday the weekend before last. Chris Packham, amongst a host of celebrities, mention a book that they recommend: ‘Most of the UK’s wildlife habitats and many of our species are in critical decline. We’ve lost 50 million birds from our countryside since 1970 so…
Thank you Andrew
Thank you to the chair of Natural England for putting Inglorious in his list of books to which he turned for inspiration this year. The other four books are all excellent and it is rather nice to be snuggling up to them on the page in Country Life. I’m glad to see Inglorious on the…