Emperor’s new clothes?

I headed off, towards the end of last week, with three chums to look at flowers and butterflies, and to drink beer and wine, and to put the world to rights. All of us could be described as senior enough to be grumpy old men, although, of course, our aim was to be happy not…

Butterflies

2012 was a terrible year for butterflies according to Butterfly Conservation – and they would know! Almost every species had a bad year with many having year-on-year declines of well over 50%.  You can see why George Osborne might be sceptical about using natural capital in national accounts if a bit of grotty weather can…

Butterflies in the landscape, and a Christmas present too

I’m sorry I can’t attend the launch today of a marvellous report by Butterfly Conservation.  Landscape-scale conservation for butterflies and moths – lessons from the UK is a superb document about how to do nature conservation.  Few of our UK conservation organisations could produce something so impressive in terms of demonstrating how to conserve threatened…

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…