A newcomer…

…looks interesting. Feargal Sharkey, Richard Benyon, George Monbiot and Ben Goldsmith – a heady mixture… I’ll watch with interest. It’s good to see a member of the DEFRA board and an ex-DEFRA minister have so much faith in our environment department that they join a campaigning group.

Gordon Yates – Jack Snipe

Gordon Yates is a wildlife photographer and many of his superb images of Hen Harriers have graced these pages over the years. He sent me this image of a Jack Snipe in the snow and said that it was the first he’d ever managed to photograph. It’s rare to see the bird this well. Jack…

Power to which people?

This report was published earlier this week – it is about competition and red tape and how we’d all be better off with more of the former and less of the latter. It may be full of brilliant stuff but it irritates me a lot as it exemplifies what the Right of politics does so…

Tim Melling – Red Grouse in the snow

Tim writes: Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus) usually defend a territory throughout winter, in which the pair will breed in spring. Birds that haven’t managed to find a territory form a nomadic flock and will take up any vacancies if any territory-holders die. But over the last few days I have noticed that all the usual…

RSPB press release – MacGillivray’s prion inches closer to extinction

Endangered seabird inches closer to extinction on UK Overseas Territory All but one of this year’s MacGillivray’s prion chicks at a monitoring site have died, reinforcing fears that this endangered species is edging closer to extinction. Invasive non-native mice are the cause of the deaths. Since monitoring began at this site in 2014 only 21…