My autumn – how about yours?

This is the ivy in my garden – it was buzzing with hoverflies, flies, wasps, ladybirds, a red admiral and spiders yesterday. I like looking at ivy at this time of year – in the sunshine – as it attracts lots of insects.  And it’s worth a careful look – the more you look the…

The mouse that roared

I bet my former colleague Simon Marsh had a bit of a busy day yesterday – and probably the day before too. The Daily Telegraph published an opinion piece by Simon telling of his disappointment in the way that the government’s planning reforms have turned out.  Not much news there you might say as that…

Just a quickie!

I’ve been looking at the proofs of my first article for a well-known and excellent birding magazine.  My first column as the Political Birder will appear soon.  But where and when?  Watch this space…. And I think that a reader called CaperKylie wins the prize (there is no prize) for the most amusing merger suggestion…

Are all Americans stupid?

I am, of course, only referring to American bird species. I ask the question because of a conversation I had back at the Bird Fair but first let me tell you about the Carolina parakeet. The Carolina parakeet was a native north American parrot that was widespread in the east of the USA when the…

Sharing or sparing?

A couple of my mates, and a couple of people I don’t know, have recently produced a paper in Science – the US-based not-quite-so-good version of Nature. They look at two versions of land-use and ask which is best as in the title of this blog.  Starting from the point that we may soon have…