Although I worked as a forester I actually studied Agricultural & Forest Science under the great agricultural educationalist Mike Soper. Even back in the 70s I remember the question ‘where does it all end?’ was being asked – the risks of flash-over resistance to antibiotics from pigs to humans as a result of them being…
Tag: farmland birds
Hope continues to rise
Every picture tells a story – and this one tells a big story. This graph shows the farmland bird index at the RSPB’s Hope Farm and in England as a whole. It shows a slow, steady decline in England altogether (blue line) but a massive overall rise (red line) at Hope Farm. Read more about…
Let’s be reasonable.
I don’t know how often readers of this blog go back a few days and read the comments that continue to accrue on earlier posts. And I don’t know whether I would recommend it either – sometimes a late post is the best of the lot, but not always. So, I have little idea how…
BBS second visit
I’m really quite fond of my Breeding Bird Survey square (I have two but there is one that I think of as ‘mine’ more than the other). It really doesn’t photograph that well – being a bog-standard bit of arable farmland – but still, I am fond of it. On Sunday morning I made my…
Open Farm Sunday
I did a turn for my favourite local farmer yesterday on Open Farm Sunday. Duncan Farrington, of the delicious Mellow Yellow rapeseed oil (and the even more delicious Mellow Yellow garlic mayonnaise) had an event just down the road. I spent the day, in the sunshine, talking to people about birds, as I have done…
The call of the BBS
I survey two squares for the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey, and for my own interest, and for you. I made the first visit to each of them for 2014 over the weekend. The first of ‘my’ squares is one that I have surveyed for the past nine years. It’s a one-kilometre square of farmland near…
Nonsense
I did, kind of, tell you so… In The Times, once a dull but reliable newspaper, a few days ago there was a headline thus ‘Farmers praised as Skylarks soar again’ (click here but you need a subscription). The piece by Ben Webster was a write-up of the GWCT ‘survey’ of farmland birds by farmers…
Arise Sir John
The recently knighted Sir John Randall MP is a birder. Having stepped down from being Deputy Chief Whip he is now enjoying the freedom of the backbenches and the freedom to speak up for nature (note this speech he made in the Christmas adjournment debate from 1:40pm onwards where he touches on various subjects including…
That CAPs the year off nicely – not!
The decision of the coalition government to reject the Secretary of State for the Environment’s recommendation of a full 15% rate of modulation for the CAP (and go for 12% instead) caps off an awful year for wildlife in England; – glacially slow and inadequate progress on MCZs – UK opposition to a neonic ban…
Charles Clover’s £398
I like Charles Clover but I don’t (by any means) always agree with him. His column in today’s Sunday Times is entitled ‘Greedy farmers a-milking it, no turtle doves and no partridges either‘ and describes Peter Kendall as ‘the cocky ambassador of agri-business‘. Wow! Even I am more polite about PK than that! Charles Clover,…