I have been involved with monitoring and protecting raptors, in particular the Peregrine beginning 1967, when the North West Raptor Group was established, then only 7 active territories remained in the North West England. In the 1980s I located the first ground nesting pair of Peregrines close to the A6 on Shap. Field work began…
Tag: Bowland
New grouse butts going in in the Forest of Bowland
It’s traditional you know. Photographs taken in late July. Ban driven grouse shooting.
Bowland – signs of the times
Let’s not forget that four male Hen Harriers have ‘disappeared’ this breeding season from active nests in the AONB of the Forest of Bowland whose logo is a Hen Harrier. The Duke of Westminster owns the grouse moor of Abbeystead in the Trough of Bowland but there are a couple of other sporting estates there…
Henry in Bowland 3
Henry’s ears should have been burning last night because he kept coming up in conversation at the launch of Michael McCarthy’s book, The Moth Snowstorm, in the Linnaean Society in Piccadilly. This was a gathering of the friends of one of the country’s finest writers about environmental matters and the natural world – it was…
Henry in Bowland 2
Henry is pining for a ringtail. He’d heard that the Forest of Bowland was his best chance for a hot date. ‘this one looks rather cute’ Henry told me. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Henry’, I said ‘They all look much the same to me’. Henry gave me a bit of a glare, I thought. He…
Henry in Bowland
Yes, Henry is in the Forest of Bowland – the so-called stronghold for Hen Harriers in England. Henry was pretty brave to show up here as three male Hen Harriers have disappeared from active nests in this area this season. There may be lonely ringtails around, but are the risks worth taking Henry? It was…
It’s a wasteland for Bowland Beth
David Harsent has won the prestigious TS Eliot prize for poetry for his collection of poems, Fire Songs. He is, the judges said, a poet ‘for dark and dangerous days’. This might seem a little off-subject for this blog, although I do try to maintain the appearance of having a thin veneer of culture. However,…
Lancashire’s ‘Bowland Betty’ bites the Yorkshire dust
A female hen harrier raised in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, last year, and fitted with a satellite tag, was found dead on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales in June this year. I hadn’t realised the trans-Pennine rivalry was so strong that the War of the Roses included shooting each other’s hen harriers….