Saturday was a very enjoyable day. I attended a BTO conference for the Berkshire and Oxfordshire region (at Benson just south of Oxford). It seemed the right place to be as the first talk was given by Ian Newton (whose latest excellent book was reviewed here), another talk was about the birds of the ‘heart…
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The new Clint Eastwood film
The NFU elections provided us with a the possibility of a new Clint Eastwood film but whether it is a remake of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or the Good, the Good and the Good, or simply the Bad, the Bad and the Bad remains to be seen. I will try, very hard,…
Driving around in black and white
There was nothing wrong with the Darlington Premier Inn, although I won’t be rushing back there for the ambience and atmosphere. However, driving through the Pennine snow before dawn was more of an adventure. Sitting drinking coffee from a vacuum flask while watching three blackcock displaying was a delight. The males strutted with their…
Not the worst thing ever? But surely not the best.
There was a lot of discussion about the EA dropping their biodiversity role because of cuts last week. Everyone squealed (see here and here) that this was a bad thing – as they were meant to do because that makes the cuts more difficult. I’m not so sure. I’ve never really thought that the EA…
What do these two species have in common – perhaps?
Sunday was a lovely day – it didn’t rain and it didn’t blow a gale and the sun shone. Hooray! I was in Norfolk and saw the odd bird or two and it felt like we were coming towards the end of winter because I also saw… Carpets of snowdrops. I like snowdrops – don’t…
Save me from local solutions
As I wrote some time ago, ‘there is no way to get rid of water, only to slow down its inevitable passage to the sea or speed it up’. And if I want to get rid of the water from my land it has to go somewhere. If I build a flood defence around my…
What do you think? More results from readers’ survey.
Readers of this blog are generally satisfied with the performance of wildlife NGOs – I think you are all just a little too generous. However, although there is a clear majority who disagree with the idea that there are too many NGOs, a large minority – 43% of respondents – believe that we have too…
Signs of spring and a scary encounter
I’ve made it out a few times recently but I only got a little bit further than this at Stanwick Lakes the other day before the water was too deep for wellies. It hasn’t felt much like spring to me, but some of the birds seem to believe it is. Great Tits are in full…
Who are you? More results from the readers’ survey.
The responses to the readers’ survey (854 of them, although not everyone answered every question) suggest that readers of this blog are not hopeful about the state of British wildlife, think the coalition government is doing a bad or very bad job for the environment and claim that this will influence how they vote. Last…
What is this nest?
I’m rubbish on nests. I have been asked what species of bird made this nest and I haven’t really got a clue! Please help me out so I can look clever… It’s about 8cm in diameter (just over 3″ in old money).