The open season on Red Grouse ends today and reopens on the Inglorious 12 August 2016. What better day to add your name to an e-petition to get the Westminster parliament to debate the future of grouse shooting? Grouse shooting is a pointless and environmentally damaging hobby for people with guns. this would be fine…
Tag: hen harrier
Westminster Hall debate on toxic ammunition
The transcript of yesterday afternoon’s Westminster Hall debate on lead ammunition is available here. I’m always impressed by how quickly these things appear. I attended the debate, even though you can watch it on TV – it’s like live sport, it’s much more fun to be there to see the tackles going in. As a…
Inglorious listed as a nature book of the year – twice
It’s always nice to be noticed and praised – and that’s what book of the year lists do – see mine here. So, it was obviously very pleasing to see Inglorious listed in two book-of-the-year lists yesterday – the Guardian and The Times. In both cases Inglorious was nestling in with lots of good reads…
Two days last week
I drove to Rainham Marshes to meet a friend for lunch and birding – both were good. We saw a very attractive Marsh Harrier with a cream crown and there were Blackwits and Golden Plover, and Pintail and Shovelerand Cetti’s Warbler and Stonechat too. And we moaned about the government, and a little about the…
In two hours’ time…
Comments Off on In two hours’ time…
At 8pm the following message will go out to over 6.1 million social media accounts: “Please SIGN/SHARE this petition to #BanDrivenGrouseShooting. The illegal shooting of “Annie” warrants a debate! http://thndr.it/1La6m8y” Will we see a massive, a moderate, or a miniscule rise in the number of signatures on the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting? I…
Wildlife Trusts in a muddle – in their own words
I was very disappointed to read this from the respected CEO of my local wildlife trust. It’s quite likely that the very few words at his disposal made the views of the Beds, Cambs and Northants WT sound sillier than they actually are – but they are his and their chosen words! The Wildlife Trusts…
Climate march in London today
Together we are powerful – that was the message that thousands of people sent to our politicians in London this afternoon – and others were sending the same message in other cities across the UK and across the world this weekend. How many of us were there? I don’t know. I’d guess 20,000-40,000 but maybe…
Sunday book review – Yorkshire Dales by John Lee
Sometimes I have a book for a while and I keep putting it down and the voice in my head says ‘I’ll settle down and read it a bit later’ and when that happens it’s a pretty good bet that I’m not going to be gripped by the book. This was one of those books…
The Sandford Principle
I am very fond of the people who comment on this blog – most of them anyway. There is so much knowledge, and humour, and different perspectives that I learn a lot. Sometimes you just make me smile and sometimes you provide nuggets of information. Yesterday, Richard Wilson, a frequent and valued commenter here, pointed…
Peak trough
The Peak District National Park is failing badly in being a refuge for protected birds of prey. Our National Parks are wildlife crime hotspots because we allow game shooting to dominate the ecology of so many of them. After five years of ‘co-operation’, when ‘everyone’ was working collaboratively to increase bird of prey numbers, the…