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I’m rubbish at plants so I don’t know how much I will use this book, but I’m interested in books on natural history and I can see that this is a high-grade piece of work. This is another Princeton University Press/WildGuides field guide and they are almost always clear, well-designed and written by experts (see…

The most controversial aspect of gamebird shooting is whether you call its unwilling participants gamebirds or game birds. Aside from that it is widely agreed that things must change. But mass shooting of gamebirds has become a habit, a bad habit, and the macho so-called leaders of the shooting industry are so stuck in the…

Tim Melling: I was recently watching and photographing Starlings in the garden and was surprised to see how much time they waste squabbling over the abundant food.  They even squabbled over the bird baths which can comfortably fit five Starlings together.  It seemed to be mainly the “teenage” Starlings that did most of the fighting…

As just announced at the smooth, inspiring and excellent RSPB AGM the RSPB has a new position on gamebird shooting. It’s not massively different, but it does represent a ‘Gloves off‘ moment as a commenter on this blog asked for. Well, maybe we should regard it as a ‘Gloves off, but it will take us…

RSPB honours influential conservationist who saved India’s vultures Today (Saturday 10 October), the RSPB is presenting Dr Ram Jakati with the prestigious RSPB Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Nature Conservation. In the 1990s India’s vulture population was pushed to the brink of extinction due to the use of the veterinary drug, diclofenac, given to cattle…