I was at Martin Mere over the weekend – and very nice it was too. I saw flocks, gaggles, herds, wisps, springs, flings, paddles, plumps, omnisciences (yes, really!), deserts, a small exaltation, doadings, skeins and flights – but what is the collective noun for lots of your birding friends? Because it was a great place…
Tag: hen harrier
Small footnote to sad story.
The story of Bowland Betty is one of a Hen Harrier satellite-tagged in Bowland in 2011 and then travelling around much of upland Britain before being found dead on a Yorkshire grouse moor in June 2012. Bowland Betty was shot, not necessarily on the Swinton Estate on which she was found, but most probably nearby,…
A sense of place
At the New Networks for Nature event there were lots of good bits. There was a bit where three people talked about Sense or Spirit of Place. One of the speakers was poet Andrew Forster who lives in the Lake District now, but used to live somewhere else, in Scotland. I guess that there were…
Buzzard bashers
On Friday we heard that High Court judge, Justice Oueseley, upheld a judicial review against Natural England over its refusal to issue licences to kill Buzzards that were allegedly causing damage to a Pheasant shoot by eating too many Pheasants. Reports by Raptorpersecutionscotland and National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. There has been an outcry by raptor lovers…
Northern Ireland
I visited Northern Ireland yesterday to speak at a BTO conference there. It was a long day (alarm went off at 0430, got home again 2220) but a very enjoyable one. The welcome is always very warm in Ireland, whichever side of the border you are on, and that was true yesterday with a mixture…
Thoughts on Inglorious from Ronnie Graham
Mark writes: below you’ll find a long series of comments on Inglorious by Ronnie Graham (of whom I know, but who don’t know personally). I thought you might find it interesting because Ronnie is interesting – a shooter and a raptor worker. His comments are reproduced in whole below and my comments (which I have…
Glorious (by Tim Wootton)
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You are running out of time to visit the SWLA exhibition in the Mall Galleries, but you still have Friday, Saturday and until 1pm on Sunday. If you turn up there you might be struck by this lovely painting (or four of them) by Orkney-based artist Tim Wootton. Entitled Glorious, Tim tells me that it…
Birdwatch birders’ awards
Birdwatch magazine has excelled itself in this year’s Birders’ awards. There are 10 categories in which you can vote (whether you consider yourself a birder or not). I can imagine the voting being pretty close in some categories – in particular the ‘Guano Award for Environmental Harm’ category. The four ‘contenders’ are the Countryside Alliance,…
Eight years
#justiceforannie thunderclap
‘Annie‘ was a female Hen Harrier which was found shot on a grouse moor in Scotland. She has become the symbol for attracting people to sign up to a social media thunderclap tagged as #justiceforannie. This was the idea of the Moving Mountains Nature Network (@MMNNActionUK) and it will send out a message about our…