I’m getting on a plane today for the first time since June 2013. I’m heading up to Aberdeen to give a talk about Passenger Pigeons (and a little bit about Hen Harriers) to the Aberdeen RSPB Group on their 40th anniversary. I’m looking forward to seeing Aberdeen again. It must be almost exactly 34 years…
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RPA considering…
Several readers of this blog contacted the Rural Payments Agency at the news of the conviction of a Norfolk gamekeeper for poisoning birds of prey. They have received letters of this form: Thank you for your recent e-mail concerning the Norfolk gamekeeper found guilty of killing protected species of birds. I can confirm that…
More Crex than ever – well, for 45 years.
The Corncrake is not the most charismatic bird in the world – a Moorhen-like bird that lives in long grass, has a rasping ‘song’ (crex! crex!) which it mostly sings at night and looks like it finds getting airborne difficult, but which flies to the other side of the Sahara every year (and back of…
Get the big cats purrrrrring please
The World Land Trust, of which I am a Council member, is raising money for big cat conservation – including Bengal Tiger, Puma and Jaguar (I’d just love to see a Jaguar!). Not only will the WLT be purrrrring with pleasure and gratitude if you hand over some dosh but they will be doubly purrrring…
Our friends the gamekeepers – what should we call them?
Gamekeepers – don’t you just love ’em? They are a profession – did you know? What would be the right collective noun for a group of gamekeepers? This started as a discussion on Twitter last week – so here are some ideas to get your imaginative juices running: a ‘slaughter’ of gamekeepers a ‘dropped the…
Have done badly, still doing badly
According to last week’s Living Planet report from WWF, we have lost half of the living individual vertebrates on the planet in the last years 45 years. Quite a lot of people wanted to quibble about this, and it is an eminently quibble-able claim, but the essence of the arresting claim must be true. You…
Really Jim?
Local knowledge is sincerely to be prized, and who could know a National Park better than its Chief Executive? Jim Dixon, the outgoing Chief Executive of the Peak District National Park (famed for its raptors, like all our National Parks) took me to task, just a little, on what I wrote about the recently departed…
Interesting from Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water supported the study released on Wednesday which looked at the impacts of heather burning on the wider environment. I contacted Yorkshire Water and was impressed by their speed of reply. My first contact was with a young lady called Brook with whom I was allowed to chat online – this was an excellent…
Sea otters and a rule
Last week was apparently Sea Otter Awareness Week – I wish I had noticed at the time. I spent an unforgettable time watching a Sea Otter in June 2013 – he or she was sooooo cute! I will never, ever forget those moments. Almost all of those who comment on this blog are cute too…
Thin, very thin
The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust blog is reeling. Yesterday they were in a complete spin over the Leeds University study showing impacts of heather burning on soils, waters, emissions and biota – a pretty clean sweep of physics, chemistry, biology and backed up by quite a lot of maths. They got themselves into a…