Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting passed the 10,000 signature mark on 31 July and received a response after nearly five weeks of brow-wrinkling thought on behalf of Defra on 1 September (maybe they thought I’d be touched by it appearing on the centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon). The sections in…
Tag: passenger pigeon
Passenger Pigeon day
Yesterday was a really nice day. I did a radio interview early in the morning on the fact that it was the exact centenary of the death of Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon on Earth, and then had breakfast in the garden before taking my ‘new’ son-in-law and daughter to the airport to set off…
The centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon
It’s surely worth pausing today, around 1730 UK time would be appropriate (1230 Ohio time), to remember that we drove the most numerous bird in the world, the Passenger Pigeon, to extinction exactly a century ago. Listen to, and watch, me being interviewed about Passenger Pigeons by Martha Kearny on the BBC World at One…
Passenger Pigeon centenary looms
Here’s a piece by me in today’s Guardian about the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. They slightly mangled the ending (Grrrr!) So here’s the original version of the penultimate paragraph. ‘And I can’t see that we would be worse off if the US had kept the Passenger Pigeon and more of its forests, and the…
A Message from Martha published in the USA today
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Today, A Message from Martha is published in the USA – six days before the exact centenary of Martha’s death in Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914. Here are 10 reasons to buy and read my book if you are living in the USA or Canada: this was the most numerous bird in the world…
Keeping the wolf from the door
I’m lucky enough to get the chance to write for money sometimes and that helps to keep the wolf from the door – although I’d quite like to open the door here in east Northants and see a wolf trotting past. That would be quite a shock and a very nice surprise. Here are three…
A nice email to receive
It’s lovely to get e-mails like this completely out of the blue: ‘I finished reading Martha about ten minutes ago and because you are so easy to contact I felt I had to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your book. I found it very moving and very thought provoking. I have been…
Bird Fair Day 2
The winner of the Fair to Nature farming award was unveiled at breakfast at the Bird Fair today and it was…drumroll….Graham Birch. Congratulations to him and to the two Highly Commended farmers (Ian Crabtree and Charles Porter)(click here for details). Thank you to Fair to Nature (formerly known as Conservation Grade) for a free breakfast,…
The book to buy at the Bird Fair
This morning I am talking about Passenger Pigeons in a double act with Tristan Reid in the Main Event Marquee at 1100 (until 1145). Come and listen to the tale of the Passenger Pigeon and what it signifies for us today in a countryside which is losing its farmland birds – and another pigeon, the…
St Martha’s day
St Martha is the patron saint of cooks – and this is her day. Page 148 of A Message from Martha will give you details of stewing, baking, frying and broiling of Passenger Pigeons – but first, catch your Passenger Pigeon, which might be a tad difficult today. Yesterday I saw the proofs of my…