Press release – RSPB on Valentine’s Day

Losing what we love: England’s planning system is destroying nature piece by piece Between 2009 and 2020, local authorities in England published an average of 422,000 planning decisions per year, of which about 85% granted planning approval. Of the 98 Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects applications, only four have been refused and one partially refused. A…

A good reply from my MP

I wrote a very short letter to my MP last week: it simply said Dear Mr Pursglove, I’m ashamed of the man who is our Prime Minister. Are you? And if not, why not, please? I had a 2-page response from Mr Pursglove yesterday, and fair enough, it’s a good response. It doesn’t actually answer…

Disease risk and Beaver reintroductions

It has been brought to my attention that there is a report, commissioned by Natural England, entitled Revised Disease Risk Analysis for the Conservation Translocation of the Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber) to England, 2021.  This report discusses, I gather, the potential for introduced Beavers to spread diseases to other Beavers, other widlife, domestic stock and…

Did you do a BGBW last weekend?

I counted birds in my garden for an hour last Sunday – as usual. Numbers were a bit lower than usual and Chaffinch and Greenfinch didn’t turn up at all. There have been very few Greenfinches around this year and my only garden records for 2022 are a few fly-overs. House Sparrow numbers were low…