The December Birdwatch

The latest Birdwatch is now out – my column promotes Gavin Gamble’s e-petition. Elsewhere in the magazine is an interesting review of the Hawfinch invasion – have you seen any? No, nor have I – but I keep looking up and hoping. Bill Oddie writes about birding Scilly this autumn – and getting wet and…

My article on UKHillWalking.com

    Here’s an article by me on the UKHillWalking website – seems to be going down well. Have a look at the comments too – some interesting ones there. GWCT is bleating that they want a say – but they haven’t left a comment on the article so far. It would be good to…

The Passenger Pigeon’s DNA

I’ll always be interested in anything to do with the Passenger Pigeon – the formerly most abundant species on Earth but which was driven to extinction, finally, on 1 September 1914. A new paper in Science suggests that Passenger Pigeons had a very low genetic diversity.  the authors describe this as surprising but I’m not…

Blue Planet 2 – programme 4

  I thought this episode – about the open ocean – was the best so far. Great footage of boiling seas, sleeping Sperm Whales and a whole lot more.   And for once, the message of environmental degradation was very adroitly put over – I thought.  The scene was set about the immensity of the…