Standing up for Nature
This was Bowland Knotts yesterday evening – it was a lovely clear evening. It’s a pretty deserted place on the road across the moors from Slaidburn to Clapham in Bowland – a few Curlew and lots of Meadow Pipits – but there was a relatively big crowd there at 8am this morning as the Marathon…
Yesterday I drove up to Wheldrake Ings to have a chat with the Countryfile crew (above, Charlotte Smith on right) about Wild Justice. I was listening to The Jam’s ‘News of the World’ just before I stopped at the Ferrybridge Services and saw this news of a Hen Harrier that died with its leg in…
Thirty-three years ago, at this time, I was walking around the Flow Country in the north of Scotland in my first few months working for the RSPB. Last year, at this time, I was in the northwest of the USA. What links those two times is the trees I was looking at. In both cases…
Let’s hear it for the Aarhus Convention! So, of £26k raised in double-quick time last spring (2018!) £5k goes in costs and the rest goes to my, our, legal team. And that also pays for the appeal which we are pursuing. This shows clearly what a great a deal I had from my, our, legal…
I’ve been away for a few days and found this Hen Harrier hat. I also found a Hen Harrier nearby (though a ringtail). Where was I?
I have just finished reading you (sic) very good book, “Inglorious” and even though I have lived a very different lifestyle to yours, at the end of the day we both share the same ideals, which is to help bring an end to driven grouse shooting. Five years ago I hadn’t even got a contract…
The Tory leadership election both fascinates and repulses me in more or less equal measure. On the face of it, I don’t think they look a very talented bunch and in my view, they don’t look like a particularly pleasant bunch either. But one of them will win, and that person will be our Prime…
In two months time, on Monday 12 August, the grouse shooting season will open. This is a land use whose days are numbered. Intensive grouse shooting is underpinned by wildlife crime and that wildlife crime is widespread. Remember the long-term study of Peregrines across the north of England which shows that their numbers and nesting…
Yesterday I went to Edale and back. I met some old friends, and made some new ones, and had an interesting day – oh yes, and was called a liar by a gamekeeper. Not a bad day all round. This is an annual event which basically has the feel of a rather up-market village fete…
Natural England’s new chair, my mate Tony Juniper, has been roundly criticised on social media for his support of Natural England’s licensing of brood meddling. Here is a selection of the comments to give you a flavour: To grant #broodmeddling licences to vested interests 4 one of England’s rarest breeding raptors on grounds that ‘if…