A few things that caught my eye: my first Sand Martins of the year were at Stanwick Lakes on Wednesday morning – it was a cold morning and I bet they wished they were back in Senegal the weather looks good for the weekend, especially Saturday, across much of the UK – butterflies, migrant birds…
Category: Z SMALLER CATEGORIES
Book review – Climate Change by HRH The Prince of Wales
It’s a while since I bought a Ladybird book – but I still have a lot of the original series dotted around the house. This book, published today, is one of the ‘Expert’ series and the three authors can rightly be classed as such (but even if they weren’t, this book has been peer-reviewed by…
A month for badgers
The Wildlife Trust/Simon King e-petition to stop the Badger cull rather than expand it into new areas has a month to run and is around 18,000 signatures away from the magic 100,000. Now, as we know, 100,000 signatures does not mean that government will do anything – but, as we also know, it does mean…
How ‘eco’ are Ecotricity’s plans for Green Gas Mills?
Last week Ecotricity, who supply my household electricity and gas, announced ambitious plans for Green Gas Mills which would produce gas from grass. The pitch is that green gas could replace or displace fracking (the environmentalist’s bete noir) and produce virtually carbon-free gas without affecting food production and by the way, help produce…
Breaking news: West Pennine Moors SSSI – at last!
Today NE notified the West Pennine Moors as a new SSSI. Great news. For a more considered view on this, come back later today, or perhaps tomorrow. A case for celebration. Previous blogs on the West Pennine Moors: Natural England seem to have forgotten the West Pennine moors, 2 April 2015; …
Two Christmas adverts #BusterTheBoxer
It’s only early November but hoh! hoh! hoh! it’s time for Christmas adverts. The first one (#BusterTheBoxer), from multi-million pound business John Lewis (@JohnLewisRetail, not the poor chap @JohnLewis) has upset some ‘real country people’ but is putting a smile on the faces of many more people across the country. Have you seen it? Deliberately…
West Pennine Moors
Natural England moves with the pace of a snail when it comes to protecting wildlife sites but with that of a cheetah when it comes to issuing licenses to bump off wildlife. Because of NE foot-dragging in the area of Gate Zero there now appears to be a race against time to get the West…
Writing competition – Under 18 winner
Hazel Peters is the winner of the Under-18 category of this blog’s writing competition. Hazel’s father, Keith, tells me that Hazel began showing her passion for nature, particularly birds, at around 7 years; recording what she saw, researching as much as she could and saving pocket money for binoculars. If she’s not at school, she’s…
Landowners win 8-year battle to save Catfield Fen
The Catfield Fen Public Inquiry report is a comprehensive and overwhelming victory for the owners of Catfield Fen (Mr and Mrs Tim Harris) in their battle to save their fen from the impacts of water abstraction by local farmers. In it the inspector finds that: there is clear evidence that the Fen is in danger…
A bit of a round up
Some things that caught my eye or ear: the IUCN congress last week approved a resolution requesting countries to phase out use of lead ammunition in hunting which is a reminder that the UK as part of the EU delegation agreed a resolution to phase out lead ammunition by 2017 – another broken environmental promise…