Sunday was a good day. Its centrepiece was having a delicious lunch to celebrate a close friend’s passing of a landmark. There was good food, good company and good conversation among a group of folk who to all apppearances were good people. To say that we were a group of middle class, middle-aged people from…
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Tracking the Midhope moor case – Peak District
Long-term readers of this blog may remember this case in the Peak District National Park from May 2016. This track was constructed in 2015 without planning permission but funded by Natural England despite it being in an SPA, SAC and SSSI. In 2016 the estate applied for retrospective planning permission and over 180 of…
A White-letter day for Scotland
A declining butterfly may have started breeding in Scotland for the first time in 130 years, after eggs were discovered by amateur naturalists, Butterfly Conservation (BC) has confirmed. A handful of White-letter Hairstreak eggs were found on Wych Elm trees at Lennel near Coldstream, Berwickshire, on Sunday 4 February. The discovery comes after Borders Butterfly…
The Labour Animal Welfare plan
The Labour Party has today published its animal welfare plan. It’s pretty good. Things that some will like (and others will hate) include: expanding the definition of animal to include decapod crustaceans and cephalopods prohibit the third-party sale of puppies establish a full-time zoo inspectorate mandatory labelling of meat to include country of origin and…
A fun quiz
I quite like Country Life – I might take out a subscription. In this week’s magazine there is a quiz to see whether you are a real countryman (women need not apply). It is quite fun, and consists of 100 questions set by Simon Lester, who is apparently a naturalist and former gamekeeper (an…
A week this evening
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I’m looking forward to giving this talk in Norfolk next week: Why should East Anglian Birders care about what happens on Grouse Moors? Great Witchingham (Lenwade) Village Hall, starts at 7.30 pm. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Saving another £6
The National Trust has increaased its subscription rates. I’m not regretting my move to National Trust for Scotland.
You can vote – this is why
It was on this day in 1918 that the Representation of the People Act received Royal Assent. This act, sometimes called the Fourth Reform Act, followed the previous three in 1832, 1867 and 1884. The Great Reform Act 1832 allowed male rural landowners, shopkeepers and those paying rent of over £10 per annum to vote….
Two tales from the Sussex woods
Ahead of speaking at the Sussex Ornithological Society conference on Saturday I stayed in a B&B nearby on Friday night. It was quite a posh B&B , and very nice, but hard to find. Well, it wasn’t the B&B’s fault that it was hard to find, I think that was partly my fault and partly…
True, very true.
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The North York Moors National Park has a blog – hooray! It’s an official blog – hooray! Put ‘hen harrier’ into the search engine and you get the very honest return of… No – nothing to see here. Nada! Zilch! Bugger all! Please sign Gavin Gamble’s e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and…