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We have this week, in just a couple of days, seen the passing of three impressive figures in UK nature conservation: Norman Moore, Michael Meacher and Mick Carroll. I knew all three of them a little and admired each of them a lot. It would probably be difficult to think of three more disparate figures,…

I was in Cley last night so I didn’t see the Channel 4 news. This interesting piece (wildlife protection to be watered down?), with Stanley Johnson (sire of Boris etc, and author of the Habitats Directive (see p88 of Fighting for Birds)), is worrying. It may be simply a language thing, although the Dutch are…

  I feel a bit Goring-like when I hear the word ‘partnership’.  I’m all for partnership but only as a ‘means’ and not as an ‘end’. All too often these days, those in nature conservation talk of partnership as if it’s the only way to get things done but it clearly isn’t. I’m all for…

An ichneumon wasp new to the UK was caught in a chance sweep of a butterfly net at the RSPB’s Broadwater Warren nature reserve is a type of wasp never before recorded in the UK. Back in 2013, Tony Davis of Butterfly Conservation was undertaking a moth monitoring programme at Broadwater Warren when he came…

I’m giving two talks this week – one in Berkshire (Wednesday evening) and the other in Norfolk (Thursday evening). I’ll be at the Berkshire Ornithological Society on Wednesday in room 109 of the Palmer Building at Reading University’s Whiteknights Park. Non-members are welcome provided they cough up £4 on the door. And then on Thursday…