Have you seen Chris Packham’s Secrets of Our Living Planet series? I have to confess to having seen only most of one episode of the three that have been broadcast. My eye didn’t travel further than the football that was on TV and that’s why I have missed them. I caught most of last Sunday’s…
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Let’s hear it for the buzzard – and the osprey
I fled Scotland a day early and am now back home – the weather drove me away. I did consider turning up at the Scottish Game Fair on Friday, but standing around in the rain, in a soggy field full of people moaning about buzzards didn’t really appeal to me. I see they will get…
…and there was more
Yesterday’s blog ended before 9am on Tuesday morning with pine marten off the bucket list. But there was more… I spent more time enjoying the pine forest but then headed off. I stopped at Nethy Bridge and looked for dippers from the attractive stone bridge, but with no luck. Then it was off over the…
Great new Elizabethan naturalists – the result
With over 800 votes cast, the final rankings were as follows: David Attenborough 270 votes Peter Scott 211 votes Gerald Durrell 111 votes Derek Ratcliffe 89 votes Norman Moore 55 votes Max Nicholson 33 votes Jane Goodall 33 votes David Lack 28 votes Miriam Rothschild 25 votes James Fisher 6 votes Tony Soper 6 votes…
Queen saves countryside, Steve Bell thinks not…
I do like Steve Bell’s Guardian cartoons – they usually make me laugh although I know they won’t be too everyone’s taste. Was this one stimulated by the Sunday Express headline a few weeks ago which stated that ‘Queen saves countryside’? Would cormorant now be added to the list?…
Euro 2012 – the political and environmental lessons so far
Sixteen countries started the Euro 2012 journey and now their number has been reduced to eight. Three of these 16 countries were non-EU countries and all have exited the competition. Eight of the original countries use the Euro as their currency (France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) whereas eight do not (Croatia,…
Going cuckoo – or gone cuckoo?
We are within days of the summer solstice and I haven’t had my spring yet! There’s plenty of time for there to be a baking hot summer but I am not necessarily expecting it. And it’s turning out to be a funny old spring/summer. For a start, England have played two games of football and…
Road to Rio+20 and road to Euro 2012
Over the last few weeks, and into next week, I have been a guest blogger on the RSPB website; blogging about the Rio+20 conference from a variety of perspectives. And yesterday, the RSPB got a much more eminent guest blogger to chip in – Deputy PM Nick Clegg who is going to the Rio conference. …
Five short jobs, since it’s quite likely to be raining
1. Support Plantlife’s campaign to make verge-cutting ecologically literate. Have a look at these photographs from Nigel and Lois Harbron of a small patch of what is essentially a flower meadow which poses no threat to road safety and is bureaucratically scalped every year. 2. Spend two minutes to get a bank to give $5…
Better than an octopus? We’ll see…
With Euro 2012 now under way our minds will turn to football – won’t they? 13 of the 16 teams are members of the EU and therefore have designated sites as Special Protection Areas under the Birds Directive and Special Areas of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. After the last World Cup where a German…