I received this letter by email a little while ago. I thought I’d share it with you, without commenting on it (except I couldn’t resist adding a photo (or three) of a magnificent sea eagle (or sea eagles)). Dear Mr. Avery I have never written to you before but have heard a great deal…
Tag: RSPB
Whose science counts? Don’t droop your ‘h’s!
I remember attending a Game Fair, in fact it was the last one in 2011 (rained off this year) when in the space of two days I heard people say that we British have the ‘best farmers in the world’, the ‘best foresters in the world’ and the’ best shooters in the world’ – and…
Marsh Award for Ornithology 2012 – Professor Jeremy Wilson
Yesterday evening, at the Mall Galleries, surrounded by beautiful artwork, Professor Jeremy Wilson of the RSPB Conservation Science team received the Marsh Award for Ornithology. I’ve known Jeremy for many years and he is both a very nice and a very bright bloke. Here’s what he said to me: MIA: How do you feel…
Raptor round up
It would be perfectly possible to write about birds of prey, how wonderful they are and their troubled and shortened lives, every day on this blog. I try not to do that because there are other sites that do it so well (raptor politics and raptor persecution Scotland) and because there are other big issues…
RSPBiodiversity?
A while ago the results of a poll on this website suggested that the RSPB should not change its name, but it was only a few hundred people and the reasons for not changing were varied and contradictory. Then at the RSPB AGM there was a question about whether the RSPB was going to change…
Wuthering Moors – 29 The bigger picture
The Walshaw Moor Estate case is important in itself, and we commend again the RSPB for taking a firm stand on it, but it is also indicative of a much wider and deeper Defra malaise. If Defra is not now acting merely as the Rural Jobs and Fieldsports Department then it needs to get its…
Wuthering Moors 28
In a move that will be highly embarrassing for the UK government, particularly for Defra and the Defra Minister Richard Benyon, the RSPB today launched a complaint to the European Commission over the Walshaw Moor affair. The RSPB is ‘Stepping up for Nature’ by suggesting that Natural England, the delivery agency of Defra, contravened European…
Not so blithe now
I entered three poems for the Rialto/RSPB poetry competition but, not surprisingly, none of them won a prize. I’ve always liked Shelley, red Shelley, for his lyricism but also for being a campaigner and an angry one at that. If he were back with us he might (or might not) write this: Not so…
Golden opportunity for the RSPB
The RSPB’s annual report on people being nasty to birds for 2011 is now published. It tells the usual sorry tale of wildlife crime illustrated with depressing images of trapped, poisoned and shot birds. The report highlights the Law Commission’s review of species legislation as the golden opportunity to improve protection for birds of prey…
RSPB AGM
AGMs are often soul-less affairs – not so with that of the RSPB which was held yesterday in London’s QEII Conference Centre. This day in the past was a working day for me, and quite a stressful one too, as the period in the morning where you have to think on your feet and answer…