Looks like he’s going to miss this time? And it doesn’t look very much like a harrier. Could you make it up…?
Category: Uncategorized
Unholy alliance?
Ian Lindsay is Director of Education at the GWCT and he writes in the September NFU Countryside magazine about reintroductions. Do they, he asks, make conservation sense? His punchline is ‘…in the context of our declining wildlife, are reintroductions a part of sound conservation management addressing key environmental priorities, or an expensive, cynical and high-profile…
Bovine TB
I heard this suggestion several years ago from a clever colleague. I haven’t heard it since but I bet he’s right – although it’s a bit late in the day now. Is there any genetic basis for immunity to bovine TB in cattle? If so, why aren’t we using the more immune breeds of cattle? …
Yosemite fire
I suspect I am following the news of fires affecting the Yosemite National Park a little more closely than most. That’s partly because I was there around two and a half months ago and also because there is an interesting conservation back-story to present day events. Yosemite, in the California Sierra Nevada mountains, was the…
You have been warned…
Today, until midnight, is the last chance to buy the new Bird Atlas of Britain and Ireland at a reduced price. I’m looking forward to my copy and will review it here some time – but you will definitely want your own copy because it will be a fascinating read. Click here to avail yourself…
The best read
I think Butterfly Conservation‘s magazine, wittily called ‘Butterfly‘, is the best read of all the magazines produced by wildlife NGOs. I’m not sure whether it has had a make-over because it has always been excellent, but the current issue, that has a common blue on the cover (a close up of the image used at…
The quiet man of Defra?
What is the point of the Liberal Democrats exactly? And what is the point of David Heath? Who is David Heath, you might ask? David Heath is the single Lib Dem Minister in Defra and he is the middle-ranking Minister between the boss-man Owen Paterson (excellent at giving out prizes to pork pie people we…
Last chance to vote here
Today will be your last chance to respond to this short poll on what you think about the RSPB’s new TV advert. The results will appear on Thursday and some thoughts from me on Friday. There are over 100 comments from readers of this blog so far – and about 400 responses to the poll. …
If this post appears…
…then it means that I am off looking for purple emperors. Meanwhile, have you voted in my poll and commented on what you think of the RSPB’s new TV advert? The poll will close fairly soon as the results are pretty clear (to me) already so do have your say.
It’s a year of two halves
I started the year with a wildlife checklist for the first six months of the year and I can report alternating success. I failed to see Mandarin ducks in January, a bunch of migrants in March or Duke of Burgundy butterflies in May, but I succeeded with drake smew in February, nightingales in April and…