April non-showers

Last spring it was hot and dry – do you remember that?  At the moment we seem to be getting drizzly days which aren’t ideal for butterflies.  But last year was good for spring butterflies, even though not so good for summer-flying butterflies because the weather turned cold, according to Butterfly Conservation. Last year’s warm…

Love ’em or hate ’em

Yesterday I launched a new poll – or actually two of them – on this website through my (free) monthly newsblast. These two polls give you the opportunity to vote for your favourite and least favourite UK nature conservation organisation. Are wildlife NGOs like Marmite – you either love ’em or hate ’em? We’ll see….

Shifting butterfly baselines

It’s the Easter weekend and it’s cold and a bit wet – not ideal weather for butterflies.  So far, in east Northants this year, I’ve seen commas, peacocks, speckled woods, brimstones and orange tips.  It’s a start. Through the year I will hope to see white admirals, black hairstreaks, purple emperors, white admirals, purple hairstreaks…

NPPF

I’ve only had a very quick look at the government’s planning policy that was unveiled yesterday.  It’s not my area of expertise and I would have to be led by others as to its overall impact. But I find it interesting to note that everyone seems to be claiming that they ‘won’ – which is…

Nature Improvement Areas

Nature Improvement Areas are a new idea that came out of the report by Prof Sir John Lawton‘s group in 2010. From its strapped resources Defra has found £7.5m to invest in a slightly different type of nature conservation initiative – an area based, Big Society approach. No that isn’t a typo – a paltry…