DEFRA has today published its latest report on how badly it is doing in conserving bird populations. The graphs above show the individual values for each year of the aggregated population levels for groups of birds by habitat. So the dotted lines go up and down from year to year. The solid lines show the…
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Badger Trust Symposium
I’ll be at this event on Saturday – I’m very much looking forward to it – details here.
Labour’s new Green Deal
Labour’s election pledge for a big investment in energy-saving and green energy production is a vote winner with younger voters – and with me (see here and here). If there is a climate crisis (and there is) then we need to invest in this type of thing. The investment in insulation, which is always at…
Seven Worlds, One Planet (2)
Last night it was Asia – big place Asia, so it’s not surprising there was some good footage from the Walruses and Polar Bears of the Arctic and the fighting reptiles of the deserts to the disappearing Sumatran Rhinos and Orang Utans of the jungles. Vertebrate-heavy as usual – though not many birds were squeezed…
Be careful – but not too careful
‘Be careful what you wish for…’ is a phrase that any campaigner finds often crops up. It is almost always uttered by someone diametrically opposed to whatever it is that you are seeking. Rarely (I won’t say never) does it come from cautious people on your own side of debate and that tells you something….
Peak District bird surveys
Some bird surveys in the Peak District have been published. Well, actually, that’s not quite true; some rather obviously selective analyses of some bird surveys done in the Peak District have been promoted but not properly published. See here, here and here. Despite the fact that there is some celebratory social media coverage of these…
Look into autumn
I’ve always liked; No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus The same is true of autumn. Just now the autumn colours are lovely round here – hardly spectacular but wonderful in an understated English way – simply lovely. When I…
Murmuration
This is the season of Starling murmurations. On Monday i visited a local nature reserve, Summer Leys south of Wellingborough, and to the south of the road a little west of the car park there was a good display of Starlings swirling around over the reedbed before they dived into it to roost. It wasn’t…
Symbolic
This is an image of my mate Chris Packham last spring after he had picked up his CBE for services to nature conservation. He scrubs up pretty well doesn’t he? Check out the tie with the Extinction Rebellion logo on it. Chris wore that to St James’s Palace (I think it was) where his CBE…
Seven Worlds, One Planet
Last night’s first episode of Seven Worlds, One Planet was stunningly beautiful. If you missed it, then catch up with it on BBC iPlayer (link above) I recommend. There was noticeably more in this first episode about threats to the wildlife on which our eyes were feasting than is normal – that’s a good thing,…