Until recently, David Hodd was Countryside Operations Manager on Purbeck for the National Trust. He and his team had the privilege of caring for places like Hartland Moor, Studland Heath and Dancing Ledge. His original inspiration to work in conservation came from a childhood playing at Sharpenhoe Clappers and Barton Hills. David is now working…
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Guest Blog – Why I don’t submit records to Birdtrack by Keith Bennett
Keith is an academic at Queen’s University Belfast, living in Kircubbin on the Ards peninsula, Northern Ireland. His research and teaching focus on ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms to the climate changes of the ice ages (the last couple of million years). He enjoys watching birds anywhere, any time, from the first bird he…
The UK and Environmental democracy – the Aarhus end of nowhere?
Carol Day is a solicitor at WWF-UK. She originally trained as a nature conservationist and worked on policy with The Wildlife Trusts and WWF-UK, but converted to law in 2002. She now advises in-house policy staff on the law around marine and fisheries, species and habitats, freshwater and access to justice. She often ponders the…
Guest Blog – BTO & CLO by Andy Clements
BTO recently hosted a visit from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO), Ithaca, NY, USA marking the exciting culmination of a year’s discussions to set up a long-term collaboration between our two organisations. It is thanks to Mark for initiating contact between myself and John Fitzpatrick, CEO at Cornell Lab, following Mark’s US road…
Guest Blog – You can be a member of the RSPB & a gamekeeper by Rob Yorke
Rob Yorke is a countryman with two hats: one as a chartered surveyor paying his mortgage, the other as a rural commentator passionate about an informed countryside debate. He has lived in west Scotland, north England, London and now permanently in south Wales. He stalks The Times’ letter pages but it’s cheaper to follow him…
DC on the plane to Cyprus
David Cameron is hopping around Europe in the vain hope of persuading other European countries to support his wish that more of the EU rules should be made voluntary rather than mandatory. He is expected to get short shrift in Madrid, Paris and Berlin but then maybe he should be heading to Nicosia and Valetta…
The greatest European birds?
By Andreas Trepte (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons I think the following 11 bird species are the only ones which breed in every one of the EU’s 27 countries: kestrel, quail, moorhen, swift, swallow, house martin, reed warbler, spotted flycatcher, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet. My source of information is ‘Birds in Europe: population…
Which birds are the greatest Europeans?
Tomorrow is the 40th birthday of the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU, formerly European Community, formerly European Economic Community). When the UK joined the EU, with Denmark and Ireland, we brought the EU to a gang of nine (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). Now the EU is a gang of…