The report of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel is a treat, a delight, a pleasure. That’s partly because the Panel does a very good job in compiling the records and writing them up, and partly because British Birds does a good job in publishing them but largely because birds are brilliant! In each of these…
Category: Uncategorized
Controversial?
Last week I spent an enjoyable Monday evening at the Royal Society listening to four really good speakers at an event organised by the World Land Trust and entitled Controversial Conservation. Chris Packham was the star turn – and he is a star. Chris’s talk ranged widely over the state of wildlife and the environment….
Not a book review – just some homework
Findlay Wilde writes a blog too – it’s very good. This is Findlay’s Music homework – what a star! Click here.
Shuffling two packs
The Government changes In Defra, out go Richard Benyon and David Heath and in come George Eustice (Con, Camborne and Redruth) and Dan Rogerson (LibDem, North Cornwall). I always feel sorry for those who are required to move on because their Prime Minister needs to adjust the left/right balance, the male/female balance, the north/south balance…
Why we should care about Pandas…and all that jazz.
Why should we care about Pandas? This is a big question to which there are lots of answers, all of which raise more questions. I’ve never seen a Panda in the wild (and I’m not, honestly, that bothered about seeing one) and I can’t recall ever seeing one in a zoo either. If…
A plague around all our houses?
You have to smile a little at the enthusiasm with which the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph (not online) trumpet the problems caused by ‘alien’ species. The ‘battle to stop foreign invaders killing off native British wildlife’ is costing £1.7bn a year apparently, including £70m to get rid of Japanese Knotweed ahead of the Olympics….
Whales, spiders and viruses
931 people took part in this 4-question poll (and lots of you emailed me about it too). It was all about choices – if you could save a species, which species would you save? You were put in a position where ‘all of them’ wasn’t a possible answer and so, perhaps, our choices (because mine…
Just crumbs
I was pleased to see that there is some evidence, from the BTO, that the decline of urban House Sparrows has stopped, paused or slowed. Let’s hope that the House Sparrow is on the up again. This is what I wrote about it for The Independent.
Blackberry makes $1bn loss!
Blackberries are quite late in ripening this year. But with a little effort, you can still pick an ice-cream container full in half an hour. And they still taste yummy in blackberry and apple pie. What’s all the fuss about? …
Four questions on extinction
Blue Whale: “Mike” Michael L. Baird CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) via Wikimedia Commons Smallpox Virus: PhD Dre at en.wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] via Wikimedia Commons Parachute Spider: Zoological Survey of India CC-BY- SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses /by-sa/3.0) via Wikimedia Commons This is just for…