Don’t fire-bomb the countryside tonight!

I like 5 November – although clearly the Catholic conspirators missed an opportunity to influence Parliament.  The failed Catesby plot allows us to celebrate with fireworks – and that’s what I’ll be doing this evening (probably after Strictly Come Dancing). But a couple of years ago I was in Stratford upon Avon at this time…

Why do they do this?

The reaction from the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation to yesterday’s RSPB report on the numbers of poisonings of birds of prey was a bit predictable. After making the arguable claim that gamekeeping is a ‘profession‘ the NGO makes the obligatory nod in the direction of upholding the law and then talks about the ‘surge’ in birds…

Not very nice

If anyone out there is thinking of killing me, please choose something quick. Whilst at the RSPB I had very few death threats (far fewer than my boss – goes with the territory) but they were mostly because of our position on ruddy ducks.  It is ironic, with the passage of time, that those who…

Edgy?

A recent tweet on Twitter from Mary Creagh MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Defra, said that Defra Minister Richard Benyon had described the relationship between nature charities and Defra as ‘edgy’. The ‘really quite admirable’ Mr Benyon did use that phrase,  in a debate, when expressing his pleasure at having his report card…

You are one in 7 billion

Today, apparently, will be born a child who will bring the standing crop of the human population to 7,000,000,000.  Yes, that’s a lot! The human population reached 1 billion in 1804 and 6 billion just before the millennium – we’ve stuck an extra billion people on the planet since then and 8 billion is about…