In a consultation document similar to the one above, the Peak District National Park introduces the Ostrich into the uplands of England. Rarely has a public body been seen to stick its head into the peat, but that’s what the Peak District NP is doing. Last year the PDNPA consulted on its draft plans for…
Category: Uncategorized
A rather dull post – but it might be to your advantage
This blog was down for a few days a little while ago while something that doesn’t mean anything to me was fixed so that everything worked properly again. It’s magic as far as I’m concerned. However, now, for a while, I’m on a monthly payment scheme which allows me to get technical work done on…
Not so brrrr!
Yesterday the thaw came. When I ventured out of the house at lunchtime yesterday it was almost warm! There was still snow on the ground but it was getting slushy. The garden bird count was much lower – an experience it seems of many of us. The Fieldfares had gone back to the fields; there…
Brrrrr! 2
It’s still snowy here in east Northants – snowy and misty. Yesterday I saw 23 species of bird from the house: Red Kite, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Blackcap, Starling, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Robin, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Reed…
Brrrrr!
I don’t think I’ll be moving far today – not far from this computer in fact. The kitchen is quite cold – one can tell by being there or by looking at how cloudy the olive oil has gone! But the garden is lifting with birds. There are still several Reed Buntings out there and…
Shiants declared rat-free
Brighter future for seabirds as Shiants declared rat free Internationally important seabird colony The Shiant Isles have been officially declared rat-free, thanks to a four-year partnership project to restore them as a secure haven for nesting seabirds. A month-long intensive monitoring check in February found no sign of rats. This means that none has been…
Nothing much to see here
My main source of income these days comes from writing – I am a writer. One of the things about writing is that there is often a long tail to your income. It’s a long thin tail rather than a long fat tail (in my case, anyway!) but it is a long tail. I am…
Sunday
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…
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…