A recap: the Hawk and Owl Trust has, unbeknownst to most of its members, become very keen on Hen Harrier ‘brood management’ (known to many as brood meddling). This move has positioned the H&OT very strangely in one of the most contentious debates in UK conservation. Rare Bird Alert held an online poll which showed…
Tag: hen harrier
Round up
A few things: pole traps were banned over a century ago but…click here feeling wild? I’ll give you the result of this little (just for fun) quiz, tomorrow at 12:05 have been going through the copy-edits of Behind the Binoculars this week – despite what it says on the publisher’s website, it should be out…
Labour: protecting animals
The Labour Party has published a rather brief pamphlet on ‘Protecting animals‘ whose focus is very much animal welfare and not nature conservation. It sometimes seems as though Labour sees the environment as climate change, and animals as welfare – which may leave nature conservation falling through a rather big hole in the middle! I’m…
Squeal, squeal, trill, croak – but not a peep.
A walk around Rainham Marshes RSPB nature reserve last week was a great pleasure. The weather wasn’t bad and the birds weren’t bad either. There were supposed to be huge flocks of Marsh Harriers darkening the sky, but I didn’t see a single one. It was a day more for listening than looking, actually. A…
Nene Washes
It was freezing at Eldernell on Friday afternoon but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. A Barn Owl was sitting on the fence just before we got to the car park – which I could already see was fuller than usual. Barn Owls are just lovely aren’t they? Any visit to a nature reserve…
50 days
Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting will close in 50 days. It stands at 20,680 signatures – already in the top 0.5% of all e-petitions on the government website. Please ask someone else to sign it today. Below I reproduce the text of the e-petition, links to some explanatory blogs and the milestones passed…
Sunday book review – Ten Million Aliens by Simon Barnes
If you are a fan of Simon Barnes then you will love this book – it is essence of Barnes. If you love nature then you will probably love this book – it is essential reading for nature lovers. Quirky views, beautifully written, and dispensing fascinating facts every few sentences, this is a thoughtful celebration…
Chris Packham leaves Hawk and Owl Trust
It’s going to be an interesting trustees’ meeting next week for the Hawk and Owl Trust. Earlier this morning it emerged in a tweet from Chris Packham that he had resigned as the H&OT President. No reason was given, but we can be pretty sure that Chris’s move was not wholly unconnected with the stance…
Compromising
There is no stopping the Hawk and Owl Trust’s Chair, Philip Merricks, in his eagerness to tell us all how brilliant a brood management scheme is, and how popular it is, and how clever it is, and yet there is little start to him telling us what it is. We are told by Philip that…
Have a look at this one
I’m having a very busy week – finishing off a book. But I did have time to read Martin Harper’s blog on Hen Harrier issues – I recommend it to you.