Here are some quotes from a press release from Abzed’s Ian Gregory which was released yesterday morning: From: Ian Gregory <ig@abzed.com>Sent: 27 January 2019 09:58Subject: Official Figures Reveal RSPB’s “Increasing Failure” To Protect Endangered Birds Embargo 00.01 Monday 28 January 2019 Government data shows the RSPB is four times less successful with hen harriers…
Tag: grouse shooting
Adam Watson 1930-2019
Adam Watson. Photo: Ronofcam, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7303182 Adam Watson died on Wednesday. We have lost one of the grand old men of UK ecology and a towering figure in upland ecology. From his doctoral thesis on the life cycle of the Ptarmigan through to his long-term monitoring of Mountain Hares, Adam Watson was a…
Various
I went to the pictures last night – to see Mary Queen of Scots. Good film! I recommend it. She had her head lopped off down the road from here at Fotheringhay. The anniversary comes up on 8 February. It’s impossible for me to watch a film without noticing the bird noises. There were some…
Another nail
River – a female Hen Harrier fledged in Bowland in 2018. Photo: RSPB The loss of yet another Hen Harrier is another nail in driven grouse shooting’s coffin. We don’t know much about River except she went to Yorkshire and disappeared on a driven grouse moor in the Nidderdale AONB. She was tagged in Bowland…
Another Hen Harrier disappears – River
RSPB press release: Hen harrier ‘River’ disappears in suspicious circumstances This is the ninth bird tagged last summer to vanish in similar circumstances Last transmission showed the bird on a driven grouse moor in North Yorkshire Police and the RSPB are concerned that the bird may have been illegally killed The police and the…
Vermin – an unacceptable term
Vermin control I have an issue with the word ‘vermin’, as one man’s vermin is another man’s cuddly mammal or brilliant bird, but the word is still very frequently used, almost unconsciously, by the shooting community to identify those species that might eat game before they are available to be shot. The way that the…
Helping the police with their enquiries…?
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/wildlife-and-the-law/wild-bird-crime/the-birdcrime-report/ The walk-out of shooting organisations from the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (revealed by this blog on Friday) is very much to be welcomed. They have played an almost entirely negative role in this group. In my opinion, justice, birds of prey and the group’s work are all better off without their presence. We…
Guest blog – Progress in the Peak by Bob Berzins
Bob writes: I have a life long passion for the outdoors through rock climbing and fell running. A cancer scare in my thirties made me appreciate many things I simply hadn’t noticed before, from the smallest plants to the gap in the sky from a missing raptor. It’s all worth fighting for and that’s what…
At last!
Hooray! I’ve finally caught up with my local male Hen Harrier at Stanwick Lakes. Not even a tiny step for mankind, one giant leap for one bloke. Such a lot of fuss over a bird will seem pretty odd to many normal people, but perhaps less odd to many regular readers of this blog. Why…
Letchworth
There were nearly 60 people in the audience of the Hitchin and Letchworth RSPB group on Friday evening – and they were a very friendly and jolly lot. And some of them went away with signed copies of my books too. It’s often the questions that are the most interesting thing for me – because…