Standing up for Nature
I’ll be talking to the Northants Bird Club tomorrow evening (Wednesday 2 September) at The Fishing Lodge at Pitsford Reservoir, just outside the village of Holcot on the Brixworth road (NN6 9SJ). Kick off is at 7.30pm. I guess I’ll talk about Hen Harriers and why we should ban driven grouse shooting mostly! But I’ll…
Born in East Anglia, but raised in the Arabian Gulf, Ed Hutchings was always going to have two things – itchy feet and an inquisitive mind. After leaving university with a degree in hospitality, he embarked on a career as a sommelier for a decade, working at various Michelin-star restaurants; in the process winning the…
Natural England has been carrying out a Hen Harrier study with radio-tagged and satellite-tagged Hen Harriers for years and years (since 2002 in fact). It formed part of the basis for the excellent NE report (A Future for Hen Harriers in England? which was published under a Labour government in 2008). Natural England has been…
It’s just as illegal to kill a Buzzard as it is to kill a Hen Harrier. Satellite-tagging a lot of Buzzards, particularly in areas close to driven grouse moors would, I bet, lead to a lot of interesting information about Buzzard movements and survival, and also lead to some interesting ‘disappearances’ which could be…
When Henry was at the Bird Fair last weekend he had a satellite tag fitted to him. You can see that the tag correctly located Henry in Rutland, and correctly located him at the right end of Rutland Water, and correctly mapped his flights around the Bird Fair marquees. You can see how detailed…
I’ll be chatting about driven grouse shooting at the Ilkley Literary festival on Saturday 10 October. It would be good to see a few friendly faces as I venture into grouse shooting country. This does mean that I will miss the RSPB AGM on the same day in London (for the first time for well…
The future of driven grouse shooting in the UK is going to depend rather more in the end, I suggest, on its wider environmental impacts, than it is on its harmful impacts on birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers. However, illegal raptor persecution is a massive problem that this government and previous governments have…
Rare Bird Alert are repeating their poll of earlier in the year and asking whether you agree with the Hawk and Owl Trust’s position on brood management of Hen Harriers (I don’t). It will be interesting to see what the numbers are this time around (here are last year’s). I hope the H&OT get…
I spent quite a lot of the Bird Fair signing copies of books – particularly of Inglorious. This led to lots of conversations with lots of nice people about Hen Harrier Day, Hen Harriers, shooting organisations and driven grouse shooting. There were quite a few ‘Well done!‘s, a lot of ‘What next?‘s and quite a…
I can do that! Yosser Hughes is applying for a job in Fordingbridge and all he has to do to get it is to put the initials of the Conservancy Trust Game Wildlife in the right order. I can do that… Gizza job, I can do that. Gizza job. GWTC? CTWG? WGTC? Gizza…