Big Garden Birdwatch

I did it – did you? I saw some birds: House Sparrow (5), Long-tailed Tit (4), Blackbird (3), Blue Tit (3), Dunnock (2), Coal Tit (2), Great Tit (2), Collared Dove (1), Robin (1) and Goldfinch (1). Several species I expected were missing: Starling, Jackdaw, Woodpigeon… I have entered the data – have you?

BSBI press release – New Year Plant Hunt 2025 results

Thousands of citizen scientists find hundreds of wildflowers blooming in midwinter Thousands of citizen scientists took part in the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland’s fourteenth New Year Plant Hunt to find wild or naturalised plants flowering in midwinter. Their observations are providing us with robust evidence of how our wild plants are responding to a…

RSPB reaction (and mine) to Keir Starmer’s speech

In response to the Prime Minister’s ‘Plan for Change’ speech, the RSPB Chief Executive, Beccy Speight, said:  ‘Deeply worrying rhetoric in the PM’s speech today, singling out regulators as naysayers when they can often be an under-resourced and desperately-needed defence, holding the line on protecting our natural world. The UK needs homes, renewable energy and…

RSPB press release – Slender-billed Curlew considered extinct

Global extinction of a bird from mainland Europe and the Mediterranean confirmed by scientists This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The last irrefutable sighting of the Slender-billed Curlew was in February 1995 in Morocco. This new study is a stark warning of the need to…