Standing up for Nature
We’re back in court a week today (on 17 January) for the last, the third, day of our judicial review hearing in front of Ms Justice Lang. The hearing is in the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand and is open to the public. For the first two days we were in Court 18…
Hooray! I’ve finally caught up with my local male Hen Harrier at Stanwick Lakes. Not even a tiny step for mankind, one giant leap for one bloke. Such a lot of fuss over a bird will seem pretty odd to many normal people, but perhaps less odd to many regular readers of this blog. Why…
I welcome the reduction in offences but it is disappointing that wildlife crime and raptor persecution continue to threaten Scotland’s natural heritage and damage the reputation of our country. Roseanna Cunningham MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform This review of wildlife crime cases is worth a look as it puts the…
There has been a male Hen Harrier seen regularly at my local patch of Stanwick Lakes since well before Christmas. Quite a lot of people have seen it, quite a lot of us have not, and I’d really like to see it. I’d like to see it because it is always good to see a…
I’ve been enjoying the 15-minute series of programmes this week on Radio 4 called New Year Solutions which are about living more sustainably. They are non-preachy and seem to be pretty well-researched on the whole. There are five programmes as follows: Monday – meat – I thought this was very good. Tuesday – cars –…
2019 will be another bad year for driven grouse shooting. Here are some of the reasons: the long, long, long-awaited analysis of the NE Hen Harrier tagging data should be published soon. Getting these data published clearly hasn’t been as straightforward as the authors had hoped as back in mid-August they were hoping that the…
Chris Packham outside the BBC standing under George Orwell’s very apt quote. Photo credit: somebody who was walking past at the time. Chris Packham has been awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List. Congratulations Chris! It is highly significant that this award is for services to nature conservation, not for broadcasting. Of course…
To dip: verb, slang: to miss a sighting of an interesting, often rare example of wildlife (usually bird) which is known to be or recently has been in an area. Being in the right place at the wrong time. I still haven’t seen the Hen Harrier that is hanging around on my local patch of…
The shortest day of the year (more or less) – so what could be better than seeing lots of Hen Harriers? Well, ‘lots’ might be difficult, given where I live, but actually, at my local patch of Stanwick Lakes. There has been an adult (probably 2nd winter) male Hen Harrier seen off and on for…
There has been quite a lot of recent media interest in the data that have come to light through Freedom of Information Act requests to statutory nature consevation agencies in England, Scotland and Wales and published on the blog of Jason Endfield. He and others have done a good job in throwing some light on…