Tomorrow is the 40th birthday of the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU, formerly European Community, formerly European Economic Community). When the UK joined the EU, with Denmark and Ireland, we brought the EU to a gang of nine (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). Now the EU is a gang of…
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Congratulations to Martin Spray
Martin Spray is one of the lower-profile Chief Executives in the wildlife conservation business so it was very good to see his name in the New Year honours list. Martin told me: ‘On a personal basis I’m both overwhelmed and proud. But I’m a part of an amazing team at WWT and it is wonderful…
The Don Juan of the listing world
Tom Gullick passed the 9000 mark in 2012 – that’s quite a few conquests. I speak of course of the number of birds that he has had. Gullick has seen 9000 of the world’s approximately 10,500 bird species – the 9000th being Wallace’s fruit dove. That is quite an achievement but I hope 81-year-old Gullick…
Let’s go out and hunt some wrens
It’s good to get some exercise but the old custom of hunting a wren on this day is not one I particularly want to continue. Wrens are little but interesting – and noisy! Wrens are often polygynous and the males build the nests to try to attract one (or more) mates. They are packed full…
You could be eating eagles…
Are you sitting down to eat a turkey later today? Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the USA instead of the actual choice of the bald eagle. He wrote to his daughter thus: “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our…
A Happy Christmas to all our readers
Defra’s year: failure to designate marine protected areas badger cull on and off like dodgy lights on a Christmas tree buzzardgate minimal and inadequate adjustments to agri-environment schemes Walshaw Moor affair leads to RSPB complaint to EU hen harriers almost extinct on their watch new Ministerial team no progress on forestry
Some bits and pieces
Give as you live. This is a good idea: if you sign up to this scheme, and do a bit of easy ‘mouse clicking’ when you spend money on the internet then your chosen charity (mine is…. wait for it…..the RSPB) gets some money from the people to whom you are giving your money. So…
Swanwick
I spent yesterday at the BTO Conference at Swanwick and left feeling slightly foolish. Foolish, because although I have attended many BTO Conferences in my time, that is the first for a good many years, and I enjoyed it so much that I felt foolish for having missed out over recent years. The conference theme…
Butterflies in the landscape, and a Christmas present too
I’m sorry I can’t attend the launch today of a marvellous report by Butterfly Conservation. Landscape-scale conservation for butterflies and moths – lessons from the UK is a superb document about how to do nature conservation. Few of our UK conservation organisations could produce something so impressive in terms of demonstrating how to conserve threatened…
Biomass – dirtier than coal?
Last week I pointed out that every form of energy production has snags – and suggested that we should give a higher priority to reducing our energy needs. Here’s another example, and it’s rather similar to the situation regarding biofuels (described in Chapter 13 of Fighting for Birds). Using biomass to fuel power stations looks…