The moorland where we watched Black Grouse display yesterday morning – we saw about 40 birds altogether – also holds Red Grouse. The Black Grouse were displaying and singing but the Red Grouse were behaving like the silent majority in the early morning. Let’s say there are around 100 Black Grouse at this site (maybe…
Tag: Natural England
Defra: friendless, clueless and hopeless
The Defra 25-year Nature Strategy is delayed – that’s not a great surprise, Defra has more or less ground to a halt on nature. The delay will be due to several factors: there is no discernable interest in wildlife conservation from any Defra minister – nor any sign of aptitude, experience or knowledge of the…
This blog
Tomorrow morning I will post the 4,000th post on this blog in well under six years. If you’ve been with me since the first post, Don’t let them get away with this, 21 April 2011, then you have quite a lot of stamina. Thank you! There have been more than 3.8m pageviews in that time. …
A few things
A few updates and things that caught my eye or my ear: That excellent blog, Raptor Persecution UK, is 7 today – Happy Birthday! the dawn chorus is getting going – Song Thrushes dominate the sound when I pick up the milk bottles from my doorstep in the morning new US Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke,…
Guest blog – Save the Dukes of the North York Moors by Steve Bamford
Steve Bamford writes: I am an amateur naturalist and volunteer recorder/worker of Butterfly Conservation. This is a plea for donations, no matter how small, to save an iconic species of butterfly that is just holding on after years of decline in an area where it used to be…
Guest blog – More from the Peak District by Bob Berzins
Bob writes: I have a life long passion for the outdoors through rock climbing and fell running. A cancer scare in my thirties made me appreciate many things I simply hadn’t noticed before, from the smallest plants to the gap in the sky from a missing raptor. It’s all worth fighting for and that’s what…
Country Life – but not as we know it
I am grateful to the Northants Library Service for such good service. The 18 January copy of Country Life arrived at Higham Ferrers on Saturday and I had a look at it on Sunday morning. Apparently Andrew Sells wrote to NE staff highlighting six priorities: more Hen Harriers in England – but I guess…
Guest blog – Peak District paths by Bob Berzins
Bob writes: I have a life long passion for the outdoors through rock climbing and fell running. A cancer scare in my thirties made me appreciate many things I simply hadn’t noticed before, from the smallest plants to the gap in the sky from a missing raptor. It’s all worth fighting for and that’s what…
Misguided meddlers
Therese Coffey was handed a hospital pass when Rory Stewart zipped off to another department leaving her holding the Hen Harrier Recovery Farce. A key, and totally ridiculous, element of the plan was to take away young Hen Harriers from grouse moors, raise them expensively in captivity, and then release them again on grouse moors…
Natural England – let’s be fair
I’m told that I should read the 18 January issue of Country Life for a more positive insight into the Chair of Natural England’s views (by one of his loyal staff). Well I’m keen to have a look but it may take some time as Country Life doesn’t squeeze through my letterbox on a regular…