RSPB AGM on Saturday

It’s the RSPB AGM on Saturday – any member can attend the morning event for free (you should register first). I was planning to go, but I can’t – a family event intervenes (which isn’t England v New Zealand or the racing from Cheltenham) so I’m glad that there will be a keen observer in…

Press release – National Trust

First seal pups seen on the National Trust’s Farne Islands The first Atlantic grey seal pups of the season have been spotted on the Farne Islands, just off the Northumberland coast.   Globally, the Atlantic grey seal is one of the rarest seal species and is a protected sea mammal.  Global numbers are estimated to…

General licence consultation – RSPB call to action

Following Wild Justice’s successful challenge to the legality of the General Licences Defra has issued a consultation and the RSPB has asked its members to respond – see here. The RSPB suggestions are eminently sensible although they might need a bit more scientific justification for DEFRA to take them sufficiently seriously. Wild Justice will be…

Pretty lame – Woman’s Hour

Yesterday Woman’s Hour (a BBC Radio 4 programme – click here and listen after 23 minutes) got together Minette Batters of the NFU, Marian Spain of Natural England and Beccy Speight of the RSPB on the pretext that there are a lot of women running the environment. In the case of the NFU that is…

Who are ‘we’?

I read a letter in Tuesday’s Guardian with interest. It was under the name of a former, highly respected, RSPB colleague of mine, Gareth Morgan, who now works for the Soil Association. Gareth’s main point is that radical change to farming is need, presumably including lots more organic farming, in order to have more wildlife…

Extinction Rebellion

My experience of London is that the traffic is in a jam even when ER aren’t on the streets. But this Roller was stopped for a chat near Marsham St earlier today. And a nice T-shirt too.

RSPB on driven grouse shooting

There was an interesting bit on the Today programme yesterday (click here, between 0845 and 0850) when Beccy Speight of the RSPB talked about the State of Nature report (and see here). Beccy did well but then, rather out of the blue, she was asked about grouse shooting and the fact that some people, including…