I am sure, absolutely sure, completely and utterly sure, that the NT has not been sitting on its hands for nearly a month since the ‘man taking his model Hen Harrier for a walk’ incident. However, we have heard nothing publicly from them about their ‘investigation’ of the matter which clearly followed a police investigation…
Category: THE WILDLIFE NGOs – RSPB, Wildlife Trusts Wild Justice, BSBI etc
Got a quid and like sheep? Contact the NT.
National Trust offers iconic £1m coastal farm for just a pound a year The keys to a £1m farm and the future of a precious landscape could be in your hands for just a pound a year, as long as you’ve a passion for nature, people, and sheep. Last year the National Trust stepped…
Another BBS first visit
I surveyed my second BBS square on Tuesday morning. It was sunny and there were lots of birds. This site starts and ends in a village which is packed full of birds; heads out along the River Nene where there are quite a lot of birds; and then before returning to the village traverses some…
First BBS visit
I was up early, although not that early for me, yesterday to visit one of my two Breeding Bird Survey squares. This is the 12th year I have covered this particular 1km square on the border of Cambs and Northants – it almost feels like mine after all this time. The weather was cold, and…
Good news for wildlife – bad news for driven grouse shooting?
The news that the European Commission is starting infraction proceedings against the UK, presumably for lack of action in England, over upland management issues, revealed on Martin Harper’s blog today is very welcome. It’s very welcome because it shows that the EU is a force for environmental good (but we knew that anyway) – although…
Five years on
Five years ago today I left the RSPB and started life as a …well, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew it was time for a change. Now I tend to call myself a writer and environmental campaigner. In that time I have written seven books – so I probably…
RSPB Council – think again
It’s quite some time since I asked the Chair of RSPB Council about the RSPB position on driven grouse shooting – it’s almost 100 weeks ago. And Prof Ormerod was kind enough to reply too (see here). Before launching the current, third, e-petition on driven grouse shooting I went to talk to the RSPB about…
RSPB does something
The RSPB included a note in its April e-newsletter asking its members to sign Rob Sheldon’s e-petition on banning toxic lead ammunition. this was wittily called ‘Last chance to take the lead’. If this heralds a month of frantic activity on this subject from the RSPB, whose agreed policy is that there should be a…
Fineshade Wood should be an SSSI
When they came into being, all those years ago, SSSIs were selected as representative examples of wildlife-rich habitats. There was no expectation that every qualifying site would be protected. Roll the clock on a few decades, and we can see that the SSSI notification has been very important in protecting our wildlife – hundreds of…
Much less murky
The GWCT, YFTB, The Times and the Shooting Times are all making hay over an embargoed scientific paper which the rest of us can’t access. It’s pretty shoddy behaviour really. They should all remove their online articles and wait for the publication of the paper in May. I contacted the authors of the paper today….