Yesterday evening, at the Mall Galleries, surrounded by beautiful artwork, Professor Jeremy Wilson of the RSPB Conservation Science team received the Marsh Award for Ornithology. I’ve known Jeremy for many years and he is both a very nice and a very bright bloke. Here’s what he said to me: MIA: How do you feel…
Tag: BTO
Mown down – the Grasslands Trust
Last week’s news that the Grasslands Trust has gone into liquidation is sad to hear but it may only be the first and most public sign of the impact of the recession on our tangled bank of wildlife conservation organisations. I know many of the Grasslands Trust’s staff personally, including their Chief Executive Lucy Cooper,…
Round up
Defra: are pretty hopeless really aren’t they? I haven’t had a reply to my ex MP’s letter about Andrew Wood’s witness statement. I’m probably on a database as a pleb – but that’s better than being a patrician. (see previous blogs on Wuthering Moors). Autumn: I saw a jay on my walk around Stanwick Lakes…
BBS 2011
The latest Breeding Bird Survey report is now available – an everyday story of declining farmland birds? Of the 19 species in the Farmland Bird Index, nine increased (grey partridge, stock dove, jackdaw, whitethroat, tree sparrow, yellow wagtail, linnet, goldfinch, yellowhammer) and nine decreased (kestrel, lapwing, wood pigeon, turtle dove, rook, skylark, starling, greenfinch, reed…
What a lark
On Saturday morning I was listening to Saturday Live on Radio 4 and a piece about punting in Cambridge. Now I’ve done my share of punting, in the rather distant past, but the sound of the skylark was not a common accompaniment to those trips though it did feature in the radio programme’s soundtrack. It…
Going cuckoo – or gone cuckoo?
We are within days of the summer solstice and I haven’t had my spring yet! There’s plenty of time for there to be a baking hot summer but I am not necessarily expecting it. And it’s turning out to be a funny old spring/summer. For a start, England have played two games of football and…
Swift
The BTO keeps doing amazing things these days. In my copy of BTO News there is an article on swift migration. Through putting geolocators on swifts – and rather critically taking them off again a year later – the details of the swifts’ movements in Africa are revealed. And they are fascinating. The picture on…
A song for Guy
Guy Smith, NFU environment spokesperson asked for the details of species I saw on my BBS visit. I wonder why. I’ll do better than that Guy, I’ll list the species seen on my visit last Saturday and compare them with those seen on my first visit to this BBS square almost exactly seven years ago…
Poor things and real things
Did you watch Planet Earth Live on Sunday night? I did and there were some enjoyable moments in it. It seemed to be all about going ‘Awww’ at cute little mammals that were having a tough time of making their way in the world – but enough of the presenters Richard Hammond and Julia Bradbury….
Say hello to the cuckoo
It’s May, it’s raining and for the first time for many a year, perhaps ever, I haven’t seen a cuckoo in April. My Birdtrackrecords going back to 2005 show me that I have always seen a cuckoo by now. I went out in a fine spell on Monday thinking that I should hear a cuckoo…