M&S, the grouse, the lead and the hen harriers

I am a fan of Marks and Spencer (M&S) – but maybe that is going to change.  I am signed up to their email newsletter (which only yesterday was telling me about offers on champagne and lingerie – how sadly they misread my lifestyle!), I tend to seek out their stores in London to buy…

Bird Fair 2013 – Day 2

Had a great day at the Bird Fair yesterday – didn’t go to a talk, hardly looked at a stand, but talked to lots and lots of people. It was easy to get in and the weather was wet, then hot, then windy – I left before the plague of locusts arrived. The main topics…

Bird Fair

I started making a list of people I thought would be at the Bird Fair and I wanted to see but it got too long after: Carry Akroyd, Tim Appleton, John Armitage, Nick Baker, Jessie Barry, Keith Betton, Andrew Branson, Keith Brockie, Mike Clarke (and everyone else at the RSPB),  Victoria Chester (and everyone else…

BBS

The BBS report covering 2012 is out – here is the link. The results: the results are the most important part of the report.  You should look at them, but here are some of the things that struck me, mostly concerning the long-term trends rather than the 2011-12 changes: there are a lot more greylag…

Not so glorious… and what about BanGS?

It’s the Glorious 12th!  Woohoo! And this year is the first year since the 1960s, according to the RSPB, that hen harriers have not nested successfully anywhere in England. Martin Harper, the RSPB’s Conservation Director said last week: “We are only a few days away from ‘the Glorious 12th’ – the traditional August start of…

Wuthering Moors 32

Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. Defra were supposed to reply today to my complaint over their late and uncommunicative response to an FoI request.  I had an email from them on Friday saying that they have now decided…

Uncomfortable results for the RSPB

An overwhelming proportion of the respondents to the poll on this website do not approve of the planned change of the name of BIRDS magazine to ‘Nature’s Home’. The final results were 66 (12%) in favour and 497 (88%) against the change . When the poll started, the first 13 votes were ‘no’, and I…

What’s in a name?

I’m quite happy being called Mark.  It’s nice and short, easy to say and comes from the Roman god of war – Mark was one of the three commonest male names in Ancient Rome.  And seems fitting given that I was born in March too. My surname, Avery, is of uncertain origin.  I had a…