Dear Andy I hope you are well. I’ll be coming to parliament a week today on a rally organised by the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the League Against Cruel Sports, and supported by some other countryside organisations too. If you are around and could spare a few moments to talk then I’d be very…
Tag: grouse moor
If nothing happens, something will happen
It seems like the grouse shooters are in a corner and they are not sure what to do next. So they are falling back on the tactic that has served them well up until now – do nothing, give no ground, wait and see. Grouse shooting is in a corner – a corner of its…
You should read this in Birdwatch
I have a great affection for Birdwatch magazine. First, they pay me to sound off about whatever is on my mind at the time and that is just completely lovely of them! Second, they put a Hen Harrier on the cover of the August issue with the headline ‘Stop killing our harriers’ and have been…
Why Labour is doing badly – and how it could do better
It’s a matter of head and heart isn’t it? I am not terribly tribal in my politics. I have been too pragmatic in my life to believe that one side has all the good guys, all the wisdom and all the solutions. That can’t possibly be the case, can it? There are plenty of politicians…
North West Birdwatching Fair
It was better than fair – it was good. I spoke to lots of nice people, and the very nicest ones bought copies of A Message from Martha too! That included the very nice Mike Dilger. He was speaking at Martin Mere before my talk on Saturday and you couldn’t ask for a better warm-up…
I do like Mondays
I like every day. This Saturday I was talking at Martin Mere at the North West Birdwatching Fair – that was fun – and I’ll write about it. And yesterday I was having a look at a few grouse moors in the North of England – and I’ll write about that too (though not necessarily…
GWCT at half-cock, shooting from the hip and mistaking its target
We all make mistakes but it would normally be expected that, when made, a more gracious acknowledgement of them might follow than that of the GWCT here. It is completely untrue to suggest that an earlier draft of the letter went as follows: Dear Sir William Langley’s comment piece on the RSPB had us rolling…
Join the online rally for nature
On 9 December, the day before the close of the grouse shooting season, some of us are going to gather together at a rally to ask politicians to do more for nature. One of the things that I will be asking my MP is ‘What will the Labour Party do, if it forms part of…
NERF 2
Sunday’s North of England Raptor Forum meeting was excellent. There’s something considerably comforting about being surrounded by glum northerners with accents. All the talks were good (even the one I missed by chatting outside, I was told) and it would take the length of the day for me to tell all of you all about…
Bullying doesn’t work
Yesterday the RSPB issued a toughly worded statement: The RSPB is (today) urging Defra to publish the workable elements of the Hen Harrier Action Plan, which we believe could bring about the recovery of one of England’s most beleaguered birds of prey. However, we’re also highlighting our rejection of one point of the six-point plan,…