All images: Eleanor Bentall. I see that Charles Moore has used his column in the Torygraph to have a go at the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts for asking their members to show their support for a Nature and Wellbeing Act, to defend the EU nature directives (Birds Directive and Habitats and Species Directive) and…
Category: THE WILDLIFE NGOs – RSPB, Wildlife Trusts Wild Justice, BSBI etc
Guest Blog – Of nests and nets by Dave Leech (BTO)
Dr Dave Leech is a Senior Research Ecologist at BTO, where I oversee the Nest Record Scheme (NRS) and the two standardised ringing projects, the Constant Effort Site (CES) scheme and the Retrapping Adults for Survival (RAS) scheme. My job involves developing survey methodology, analysing data and communicating the results to volunteers and the general…
NERF 2
Sunday’s North of England Raptor Forum meeting was excellent. There’s something considerably comforting about being surrounded by glum northerners with accents. All the talks were good (even the one I missed by chatting outside, I was told) and it would take the length of the day for me to tell all of you all about…
This time it’s the Storygraph
I spent yesterday at the NERF conference in Derbyshire but a couple of people talked to me about the latest anti-RSPB article. This weekend it was the Sunday Telegraph’s turn (and I got a mention too). It’s a very mixed-up piece. I’m not sure that the criticism of the relatively new, though not that new!,…
RSPB will come out fighting
Whoever is behind the ill-conceived attack on the RSPB fronted by a silent and absent ex-cricketer, a silent baronet and a silent ex-nature conservationist, and carried into the pages of the Mail on Sunday (did you know that the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, owns a grouse moor?), I believe they have miscalculated. They have misconstrued…
More vegetables please and less Beefy
I’m vegetarian four days a week and so I get a bit annoyed if I have beefy rammed down my throat all the time. It’s a bit unclear what the beef is that Ian Botham has with the RSPB except for the fact that they exist. He thinks they should tell the world that they…
Saturday
This is the first time for years and years the RSPB AGM has been held away from London (and it’s back in London next year). The ICC in Birmingham was a short walk from New Street station and a perfectly good venue. As I arrived I remembered that I had been here before – for…
I was going to ignore this but…
Read this, then this, then forget about it. ********************************************************************************************************************** But hang on a minute. maybe we shouldn’t just ignore this attack on the RSPB by the shooting community – for that appears to be what it is. And it is timed to appear just before the RSPB AGM. Sir Ian Botham owns a shoot and…
Hen Harriers in the RSPB magazine
I was beginning to wonder whether my ‘A magazine formerly known as BIRDS‘ had gone astray. My mum had received hers, my daughter had hers, the lady in the Post Office mentioned that she had had hers too. I know the RSPB was founded by a group of women but I don’t remember the magazine…
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…