We’re all ageing but in birders’ parlance this word often means working out the age of a bird (often from details of its plumage). And sexing means telling the sex of a bird likewise (whatever else you may have thought). When British Birds arrived at my swanky house this week, as well as an excellent…
Tag: hen harrier
First they came for the newts, then they came for the salmon, eels, shads and lampreys?
Here’s a very big example of what Dominic Woodfield wrote about in his excellent guest blog this morning. There’s a nuclear power station, Hinckley C, being built on the Severn Estuary and part of the conditions for it being built were to do with protecting fish which use the estuary and which might be sucked…
Even children find Natural England laughable
There’s no doubting that Wild Justice has been the best crowdfunder that Natural England has had. NE is now recruiting 200 staff to do its job better. Although the recruitment advert is ghastly, and makes Natural England sound like a support group for tree huggers, whereas it is actually an environmental regulator and enforcer with…
The fox that predated the wrong nest…
I miss You Forgot the Birds – remember them? They were set up by grouse shooters, notably old Harrovian city trader Crispin Odey (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), to have a go at the RSPB because the RSPB was occasionally mentioning the problems associated with driven grouse shooting. At least…
Natural England not very open
Natural England are under fire from all sides it seems. On this blog last week Bob Berzins’s account of the failure of NE to release details of a licence which allowed widespread unlimited killing of several species of birds (see here and here) suggested that the organisation might have been deliberately witholding information which it…
Cut and paste, and add more errors: wildlife reporting in the Daily Mail
The Daily Mail online have simply cut and pasted the Moorland Association’s news release – with all its errors and misrepresentations – see here. We are supposed to think that a dozen pairs of Hen Harriers on English grouse moors (some of which are not grouse moors) is a ‘high’ number whereas there should be…
Joke announcement from Moorland Association
The Moorland Association is trying to big up the Hen Harrier breeding season already – and it’s only late June! If you shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched you certainly shouldn’t count your Hen Harriers before they are fledged (naturally, in the wild) and even then you shouldn’t count on them surviving. Here is…
Press release – Langholm Initiative
First £1m secured for community’s dream of huge nature reserve The Scottish Land Fund has awarded the Langholm Initiative charity £1 million towards the purchase of 10,500 acres of Langholm Moor in the south of Scotland, which would see the local community creating a vast new nature reserve. The charity hopes to buy the wildlife-rich and culturally…
Brood meddling – you can’t make…
Dear Natural England You know that you’ve had to release the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group on brood-meddling under EIR regulations. That means that many with an interest in this project have seen the advice and are chatting about it between themselves. You should expect that some of this information will emerge over the…
Guest blog – No Further Action by Anonymous
This account is by a raptor worker who witnessed the illegal shooting of a Hen Harrier near Bowland Knotts in October 2019 within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Understandably, he wishes to remain anonymous although his identity is known to the police, the RSPB, myself and a few others. NO FURTHER…