If you are keeping water on a wetland for the benefit of wetland wildlife then it occupies some of the volume that could otherwise have been used for flood storage. This can give rise to the claim that the schemes that benefit wetland wildlife that have exacerbated flood impacts. To some extent this is bound…
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Tug! Tug!
My blog of yesterday, about what Labour could do to win back some green voters, seems to have struck a chord. Or actually, I think it is just yet another example of social media showing me (and others) that there are plenty of others out there in the big, wide world who are thinking similarly…
So much to say
Mountain Hares – make your wills! Greater love hath no Mountain Hare than he lay down his life for someone else’s grouse shooting. Please help to put an end to driven grouse shooting.
First day of winter
I’m regarding today as the first day of winter because there was a decent frost. You couldn’t call it a hard frost, more a soft frost, but a proper frost all the same. When I parked at Stanwick Lakes a little after 0730 it was cold and frosty. It felt cold as I took off…
This could be a very useful list
The latest in the ‘You Forgot the Facts, Sir Ian’ campaign is reaching out to the farming community. Farmers are being asked to sign up to an error-riddled anti-RSPB letter, and when 100 of them do, then their names will be published. I’ve always wanted a list of the 100 most ecologically illiterate and rabid…
I do like Mondays
I like every day. This Saturday I was talking at Martin Mere at the North West Birdwatching Fair – that was fun – and I’ll write about it. And yesterday I was having a look at a few grouse moors in the North of England – and I’ll write about that too (though not necessarily…
A few quiet moments
I wouldn’t have gone to Oundle just to look for a Black Redstart but since I had a reason for going anyway (getting a Robert Gillmor print (the cover of the 2013 Bird Fair programme in fact) framed) then I did go. And I needed a break. I’m writing two books at the moment, and…
Where is Labour on Nightingales?
There is a local issue of national importance in next week’s Rochester and Strood by election: nature protection. Will masses of Nightingales disappear under masses of concrete? Lodge Hill, Chattenden Woods is the only SSSI in the country specifically notified for its Nightingales – it’s an important site. A very important site. Mark Reckless used…
Suspended sentence for ‘worst bird of prey poisoner’, Allen Lambert
10 poisoned Buzzards = 10 weeks suspended sentence. This is totally outrageous. Media coverage – click here.
Not about birds at all.
This blog is not about birds, nature conservation, politics or any of the usual subjects. The lady picture above died 96 years ago today and was named Lucy Jane Saint. She was my mum’s aunt – although she died eight years before my mother was born. My Great Aunt, known to her family as ‘Jinny’,…