Four weeks today join Chris Packham and others at what is expected to be the biggest Hen Harrier Day rally yet – at the RSPB Rainham Marshes nature reserve. We are expecting well over a thousand people to assemble to express their outrage at the state of the Hen Harrier population and to call for…
Tag: hen harrier
Guest blog – Words from a Young Naturalist by Tiffany Francis
Tiffany is a nature writer, illustrator and conservationist living in the South Downs, Hampshire. She is about to complete her Masters in English at University College London and volunteers for the Hampshire Wildlife Trust and Bat Conservation Trust. Her first book will be published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2018. I have never seen a hen…
Ring Ousels on the moors
This Ring Ousel was recently photographed having been killed by a fenn trap set on a pole over a ditch on Stanhope Moor in Durham. The trap would have been set to catch stoats and weasels but of course it will catch anything that sets it off – this was an unlucky Ring Ousel. Although…
Win a signed copy of the new paperback Inglorious
It’s not a big prize, but it’s better than nothing! Let’s see whether you can predict the number of signatures on our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting at my bedtime on 31 July. That will be after 10pm but might well be before midnight – although if timing is critical, because it might be…
A bit rainy
What a fine looking male – Henry anyway! We’d been sussing out filming locations in the North York Moors one day last week and we needed a nice cup of coffee so, by chance, we visited the Milburn Arms Hotel where we did have a very enjoyable cup of coffee. OK, it wasn’t completely by…
Scotland signs up for a ban
Here are the Scottish constituencies – and what a fantastic contribution they are making to the overall total of almost 47,000 signatures for a ban on driven grouse shooting. Last time, Scotland, in 6 months, produced c2900 signatures out of 33,700. This time, in just over three months, Scotland has already produced c4800 signatures out…
Bradford Council gives go-ahead to Ilkley grouse shooting consultation
Bradford Council gave the go-ahead to a public consultation on the future of controversial grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor at City Hall last night, a move welcomed by campaigners. ‘There is only one way to manage moorland for grouse shooting and that’s through intensively burning away and draining precious habitat, at the cost of our…
How do we get to rewilded uplands?
The simple vision of rewilded uplands painted yesterday prompted a question from a reader (Ezra Lucas) that is answered, or at least discussed, here. The question is how do we get from where we are to a more rewilded upland situation, and how do we get from a post-grouse shooting world to rewilded uplands? First,…
Slim Chance of survival of Hen Harriers
Yet another satellite-tagged Hen Harrier, this one called Chance, has disappeared – her last known location (when transmitting a strong signal) was on a south Lanarkshire grouse moor. This sounds as though it must be in the same general area where Annie (pictured above) died. Add in Highlander whose satellite tag stopped transmitting…
Rewild our trashed hills
I think anyone looking at the landscape above would be hard-pressed to call it ‘natural’. It is drained and burned – and it has tracks running all the way through it. It’s the burning that creates that patchwork of different colours – patches of heather that were burned in different years according to a…