Today Plantlife launch a campaign to stop councils destroying the wild flowers of roadside verges through inappropriate cutting. The wild plant charity says that they have been inundated by complaints from the public about verges being cut this year just as the flowers appear – giving them no chance to set seed. Plantlife Chief Executive,…
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Bring in the bunting…
In amidst all that buzzard-bothering nonsense of the last couple of weeks an important restatement of the absolutely obvious was made: farmland birds have declined steeply and there is no obvious redemption in sight. The most recent science on the subject was a report produced from national bird monitoring schemes across Europe, including the UK,…
Seeing the wood for the clouds
It hasn’t been a great spring, I feel a bit grumpy about the awful weather. It means that I haven’t seen as many butterflies as I would have liked so I’ll be looking to catch up whenever the heat wave strikes (as surely it will). At the weekend I went out looking for Wood White…
Bonfires and beacons
Despite the soggy weather, beacons have been lit across the UK to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. Spare a thought for the inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha and their Jubilee beacon. When the most remote Jubilee beacon in the world was lit, its flames were fuelled by the bodies of invasive species of plants. Work to…
Where are they?
I drove for an hour after dark on a warm evening and hardly saw an insect. None squashed on the car. Where have they gone? And in my blog for the RSPB today I discuss the declines of common wildlife, including farmland birds on both sides of the Atlantic. Our ‘new Elizabethans’ poll is…