Everyone loves the Hen Harrier – don’t they?

The science suggests that there should be a lot more Hen Harriers in the UK uplands than there are at the moment. Let’s just take Scotland for the moment.  The science says there should be c1650 pairs (I have taken the central point of an estimate and then rounded it) in Scotland on the basis…

The Hen Harrier – some biology

There is a lot of nonsense talked about the Hen Harrier -and about everything else in the world I guess.  Let’s hope I am not going to add to it. Here’s my take on the biology of the bird. What they eat: Hen Harriers eat lots of things. The Langholm study showed that the density…

Wuthering Moors 45

This is NE’s response to my FoI/EIR request of 10 March. The answer to Qu4a confirms the ongoing scale of the burning of blanket bog in the English uplands and the fact that it has been consented by NE. The answer to Qu 5 seems rather evasive to me. Qu10 – that’s a lot of…

Defra response to John Armitage’s e-petition

John Armitage’s well-supported e-petition has received the following response from Defra: ‘As this e-petition has received more than 10 000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response: The Government is aware of incidences of illegal killing of birds of prey and Ministers take the issue very seriously. To address this, senior Government…

Wuthering Moors 43

This is the fourth blog today on the subject of burning of blanket bog (see here, here, and here).  These were sparked (!) by the RSPB releasing data on the scale of the issue and calling for an end to the burning of blanket bog.  There has been a little media coverage of this –…