Roy Dennis is a senior and eminent wildlife conservationist with a lovely voice and plenty of things to say. He once worked for the RSPB as Highland Officer and before that he was the director of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory. For many, Roy is best known for his role in promoting reintroductions of mammals…
Tag: RSPB
RSPB in some trouble
Indications have been growing for some months that the RSPB is in trouble but it’s no use hiding it any more. Many organisations go through what seem like interminable reviews, and RSPB has had its share in the past decade or so, but this one is pretty serious. The jobs of hundreds of staff have…
English Hen Harrier numbers slump
Natural England has published, in more detail than in previous years (click here), the numbers of Hen Harriers nesting in England – they are down this year. Numbers in 2024 are lower than in 2023 and 2022 and only slightly higher than in 2021. This year puts an end to a run of years of…
Sunday book review – The Lie of the Land by Guy Shrubsole
This is Guy Shrubsole’s best book yet, despite the success of his excellent Who Owns England (reviewed here) and his book about soggy, slippery woods, The Lost Rainforests of Britain (reviewed here) because this book is about everything! It covers a lot of ground, all of it, because it is about land use and who…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 56 by Nick MacKinnon
Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…
Guest blog – Killing the Bird that Lays the Golden Egg by Gill Lewis
Killing the Bird that Lays the Golden Egg Gill Lewis is a multi-award-winning children’s author and former vet. She writes stories about animals and our human relationship with the wild world. Her books have won the US Green Earth Book Award, the German Prize for Environmental Youth Literature, and she has been awarded the Little…
Dear Mr Reed, 1
Dear Steve Reed, just think, in a month’s time you may be in your second day in your new job as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. How will your first day in the job have gone? I’m a Labour Party member, living in the marginal seat of Corby in Northamptonshire, and…
Being a conservation investor 5 – what I think of the NT response.
I wrote to the National Trust to get some information on which I could decide whether or not to give them my membership or my donations. My book Reflections proposes that we should all think of ourselves as ‘conservation investors’ and decide where our money is best spent amongst the large range of wildlife charities…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 58 by Nick Mackinnon
Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…
What to think about Hen Harrier numbers
To make sense of the figures for 2023 UK Hen Harrier numbers, released today by RSPB, they need to be seen in context. There are five important contextual considerations. There are pretty good estimates of how many pairs of Hen Harriers could exist in different parts of the UK in the absence of illegal persecution…