Local knowledge is sincerely to be prized, and who could know a National Park better than its Chief Executive? Jim Dixon, the outgoing Chief Executive of the Peak District National Park (famed for its raptors, like all our National Parks) took me to task, just a little, on what I wrote about the recently departed…
Tag: Natural England
Interesting from Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water supported the study released on Wednesday which looked at the impacts of heather burning on the wider environment. I contacted Yorkshire Water and was impressed by their speed of reply. My first contact was with a young lady called Brook with whom I was allowed to chat online – this was an excellent…
Disease implicated as a cause of Turtle Dove decline – a bit.
The Turtle Dove is a lovely bird but is declining dramatically in the UK but also in many other parts of Europe. Although one of the more dramatic problems it faces is being shot by hunters on migration, particularly unsportingly (and illegally) on spring migration, this has never seemed to me to be likely to…
An ecosystem disservice
The nature conservation case for driven grouse shooting is pretty much bankrupt and today’s significant report on the ecosystem disservices of rotational burning bangs home a wider point. If you live in a city or the country, shoot or don’t shoot, vote UKIP or Green, are vegan or live on raw meat, whoever you are…
Natural England – are you still there?
Natural England – for people, for places, for nature. NE, you have been studying Hen Harriers through satellite-tagging for 12 years and yet despite a hard-hitting report A Future for the Hen Harrier in England (2008) you have remained strangely silent about the worsening status of the Hen Harrier in England for six years. In…
Sky and Hope
The information that two young Hen Harriers (named Sky and Hope) have gone missing has been a talking point between Guildford and Sheffield – and beyond! I know that because I was giving a talk near Guildford on Wednesday evening and another in Sheffield on Thursday evening. At each, people were very concerned and surprised…
Great twitch
The Isles of Scilly is a place that strange people visit at this time of year in search of rare birds. Stuck 28 miles west of Lands End the islands reach out to the North American continent and provide a landfall for birds swept across the Atlantic on strong winds. However, there are, of course…
A day less busy
Yesterday I spent a lovely few hours at the RSPB nature reserve at Rainham Marshes. I like Rainham, with its quirky-looking visitor centre and its medieval grazing marshes surrounded by the hustle and bustle of modern life. Planes fly over, boats pass on the Thames, cars and lorries pass along the roads, and trains, including…
Sunday book review – Birds and Climate Change by James Pearce-Higgins and Rhys Green
This is not an easy book to read, because it is quite technical, and unavoidably so, but it is an important one. The science is well-explained and if you want to understand how climate change is already affecting birds, and how it will in future, as well as how scientists study these matters, then it…
Catch-up 2
Tomorrow I’ll be missing an event hosted by Zac Goldsmith MP calling for a massive Marine Protected Area around Ascension Island. I hope it happens but I’d put Pitcairn Island (see here, here and here) ahead in the queue, and maybe also the South Sandwich Islands. What price an announcement of one or more of…