The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Sir Simon Jenkins is an amazingly gifted writer and obviously a very clever man. I love the way he writes and I read his articles for pleasure as well as for education. Back in May 2008, when the…
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East Africa drought – two things we can all do
The worst drought in East Africa for 60 years is causing famine in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Heart-rending images cross our TV screens as they have in previous years – do we react with action or by switching channels? The easier, but important, way to react is to send money to cope with the current…
A walk in our woods
Yesterday I paid a late morning visit to Fermyn Woods in east Northants. Mine was the 21st car parked on the grass verge on a small quiet road. Clearly others had the same idea, and a bit of time to spare. The stickers on the parked cars showed that there were plenty of birders there…
The raptor haters – Richard Ingrams
The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Richard Ingrams finds red kites ‘menacing‘, ‘savage‘ and ‘unlikeable‘ and is ‘pleased to see a picture of a dead one‘. Every three years or so he dips his pen in poison and is really nasty about these magnificent…
The CAP still doesn’t fit
It’s not simple to understand, it’s not a riveting read , but it is very important – it’s the EU Budget announcement! The overall budget goes up but CAP funding goes down. Fears, which were absolutely justified according to insiders, that the ‘good’ bits of the CAP, Pillar 2, would be hacked into, disproportionately hard,…
Rumour
Rumours abound as to the outcome of the EU budget discussions. I’ve heard that all is lost, and that Pillar 2 funding has been successfully defended – they can’t both be true. We’ll see! I attended the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee meeting hearing evidence on the Natural Environment White Paper yesterday. Sign up…
Thunder
I woke this morning to the sound of thunder. Whereas Aristotle may have thought that this was the sound of clouds colliding I wonder whether it is the sound of disagreements in the EU over the future funding of CAP. Or maybe Peter Kendall is still trying to tell Charles Clover how much he enjoyed…
My contribution to Big Society
This photograph makes my BBS square look about as pretty as I can given the fact that it consists of large fields of wheat. On Friday morning I completed my second BBS visit – it’s a bit late but it would have been a bit difficult to come back from the USA early to count…
‘well chuffed’
It’s always good to see good guys (and gals) getting gongs. Last night the Zoological Society of London awarded The Independent’s Mike McCarthy their Silver Medal. Mike was awarded the RSPB’s Medal a couple of years ago and has a string of journalistic awards too. The McCarthy household is thinking of getting more shelf space…
Hummers
Hummers are gas-guzzlers to most Americans – but they are hummingbirds to some. Hummingbirds seem exotic to the UK birder because we have nothing really like them – and because they really are exotic. My first hummingbird ever was about 30 years ago when I was sitting on a log in Ontario, looking at a…