‘Protect creation’ says Pope Francis

  This blog asked some time ago whether the choice of the new Pope would have any environmental importance – and my hopes weren’t that high, to be honest. Pope Francis mentioned the environment and the need to ‘protect creation’ in his first mass.  That’s a good start (see coverage here, here, here but particularly…

Book Review – Bird Conservation by Williams et al

Bird Conservation – global evidence for the effects of interventions by David R Williams, Robert G Pople, David A Showler, Lynn V Dicks, Matthew F Child, Erasmus KHJ zu Ermgassen and William J Sutherland.  Published by Pelagic Publishing. Paperback £34.99, Hardback £64.99, e-Book £19.99. 575 pages. This is a very useful reference book for conservation…

Well done Hawk and Owl Trust!

The Hawk and Owl Trust are throwing their support behind the e-petition on the licensing of grouse moors and gamekeepers.  Well done! Let’s see what other bird conservation organisations do… But you can sign up here – it’s going well, so far.

Winter still

It’s not exactly spring-like is it?  My chances of seeing/hearing chiffchaff, willow warbler, sand martin, swallow and wheatear in Northants by the end of March are virtually nil (and I haven’t troubled the scorer with any of them yet). There was, apparently, an arrival of wheatears on the south coast last Saturday, and one popped…

I hope they sink

I was an undergraduate at Cambridge but I hope that the Cambridge boat sinks in Sunday’s University Boat Race. Why? Because the Cambridge University Boat Club is planning to build a new boathouse (although it is far more than just a boathouse) on one of the best sites for otters in Cambridgeshire, and its impact…