Month: June 2024
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Magpies attack
A great story from BBOWT volunteers whom I met on the Restore Nature Now march. They came downstairs one morning and opened their log burner to find a fledgling Magpie inside, which had somehow fallen into it. The Magpie seemed unharmed so they carefully took him outside and placed him on the ground in their…
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Index, A History of the, Part II
A review of Index, A History of the; a bookish adventure by Dennis Duncan, Allen Lane, 2021. One of the many things which delight me about this book is the way in which it sets my mind off on tangents and brings back forgotten memories. We enter the territory of the index as a repository of wit…
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Restore Nature Now and my local Lib Dem candidate
Yesterday morning I sent this e-mail to our local Lib Dem candidate. For more on the march, see: Restore Nature Now – Animal Wild Dear Mr Dillon, Thank you for your various newsletters, leaflets and hand-written letter. Anything but a repeat of (any of) the last 14 years is the main thing. My natural instincts…
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Cull of the Wild
A review of Cull of the Wild, Killing in the Name of Conservation, by Hugh Warwick, Bloomsbury, 2024. Rarely has a book made me as angry as this one. It is not generally the aim of this blog to do a hatchet job on anyone else’s books, but I am making an exception. I have…
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Wildlife notes
I spotted this beautiful scarlet tiger moth this morning. This insect photo was taken not with my microscope camera gadget this time but just with my phone, incredibly. Two of these ducklings were taken to our local vet and the other four brought in the following day. I drove them down to HART Wildlife Rescue…
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Restore Nature Now
For the first time, on June 22nd, I decided to join a march. With notable exceptions I am not sure how much they tend to achieve, but this was a glorious, colourful, peaceful and happy demonstration, in spite of the seriousness of the message. Led by Chris Packham, with Dame Emma Thompson another notable figurehead,…
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Amazon’s concept of gardening
A message from Amazon announces new items for sale in its garden section. There are picnic blankets, chairs, England flags (?!) and other harmless suggestions, but by far the lion’s share of the list is taken up with various ways of killing plants and animals. Number 3 on the list is a four litre container…
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Every Animal Is Someone
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year and has launched this wonderful new slogan with typical skill and panache. This morning I received their Vanguard Member newsletter in which I was appalled to read that forced swim tests are still being carried out at the University of…
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Woodpeckers again – an adult feeding a juvenile
This is not a good photograph at all. It is blurry, contains reflections and is otherwise unsatisfying, mostly because it was taken through two layers of glass. Definitely, in terms of the subject matter, one of those good photographs that got away. I have upped the contrast to mitigate somewhat, but not even Samsung’s AI…
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Index, A History of the, Part I
A review of Index, A History of the; a bookish adventure by Dennis Duncan, Allen Lane, 2021. The photograph of the author, a translator and lecturer in Eglish at University College London, which adorns the dust-jacket of this brilliantly titled book shows a man (I hope he wouldn’t mind) with a cheeky and hugely likeable…
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Camp Beagle
A delightful and unexpected encounter in our local post office cum corner shop a few days ago with a lady clad pretty much head to foot in Camp Beagle clothing. I expressed my whole-hearted approval and we went on to have a lively discussion of our shared interest in animal welfare. We had both very…
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RSPCA Assured
It is not much more than a week ago that I posted about this: Chris Packham and the RSPCA – Animal Wild Now George Monbiot has reacted and his voice is, as ever, worth listening to. How is it, he wonders, that an organisation has come to stand for the precise opposite of what it…
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A family of Great Tits
An entire family at the feeder at once, two adults and two juveniles. It got me wondering if they had a collective noun of their own. It seems not but it did lead me here: Collective Nouns For Birds | Flocks Of Birds Names | Bird Spot The comments section includes a suggestion of “bounce”…
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BTO News Summer 2024
The image of an avocet above is taken from Animal Wild, one of those rather satisfying reflection shots. The latest from the British Trust for Ornithology features an Arctic Skua on the front cover and there is much within about the success and importance of GPS tracking of tagged birds (as well as Cuckoos and…
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James Bond behind the Iron Curtain
A review of Bond Behind the Iron Curtain by James Fleming, The Book Collector, 2021. This is an attractively and elegantly produced book by Ian Fleming’s nephew. Ian Fleming founded The Book Collector in 1952, an erudite and unique quarterly periodical, and it is now edited by James. I was asked to write an article…
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Garden flowers
Just a very short post about two flowers I’ve already written about. These lilies are even more ready to burst into bloom and the Aquilegia “White Star” below just keeps on giving.
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Police ram cow – again
At the beginning of the chapter on farming in Animal Wild, I wrote this: In May 2021 a cow who had escaped her field was seen in the streets of Woodley, Berkshire. The usual response from the police is to send marksmen out to shoot runaways like this. But Thames Valley Police decided to deal…
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Your Neighbour Kills Puppies; Inside the Animal Liberation Movement
Your Neighbour Kills Puppies; Inside the Animal Liberation Movement, by Tom Harris, Pluto Press, 2024, with a superb foreword by Chris Packham. He’s good at forewords, amongst many other things, which is why I asked him to write the foreword for my first book, Animal Trust. This is a boisterous, rollicking, relentless account of protests…
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A murmuration of Jackdaws
Murmuration is a word usually associated with Starlings, as far as I knew at any rate. But yesterday evening it came to mind immediately as hundreds of Jackdaws swirled in the skies above, presumably on their way to their roost for the night from their various local territories, one of which, for six or seven…
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More Woodpecker news
And now … an adult Great Spotted Woodpecker, icing on the cake. The excitement!
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Wildpilot II – Samsung, CEX, Rivar Sand & Gravel Ltd and more
To reiterate from Wildpilot I: I am not in general a leaver of bad reviews, only positive ones, unless a company has been truly shocking and has done nothing to redress problems. Bad reviews can do a lot of damage, they are sometimes just malicious and as someone who runs small businesses myself I am…
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Return of the Woodpecker
The Woodpecker is back for a second morning. What a bird. The red crown, flecked with black, indicates that he or she is a juvenile. And it is not just the pigeons who have bred successfully. There are juvenile house sparrows and this young Great Tit, with yellow tinged cheeks.
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Hedgerows and hedgehogs
It has been heartening to see a huge increase in the number of verges and roundabouts left alone by councils this year which of course hugely benefits wildlife. A headline in The Mirror remind us: “Garden owners face unlimited fine and even prison for trimming hedges in June.” As usual there are so many loopholes…
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Chris Packham and the RSPCA
Chris Packham has taken a swipe at the RSPCA, of which he is president, which is perhaps somewhat overdue. I have been saying for a long time and elsewhere in the blog and in my books: “It has been suggested that I am somehow anti the RSPCA, but I’m not. They do a lot of…
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HART Wildlife Rescue news
It is really busy at the rescue now, with an endless stream of animals being brought in or needing collection. Many Mallard ducklings, including the one above which I collected from our local vets (I had given them my details for such an occasion when I last took our cats in), goslings (Greylag and Canada),…
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Badger survey, June
A slightly unusual survey this time, in response to a planning permission application. We thoroughly checked woodlands managed by an outfit called Euroforest who are not averse to putting up some pretty strident signs: “STOP! Do not go further …”, no doubt for valid health and safety reasons, as they had been doing a lot…
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Garden delights
Wordsworth wrote: My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky… Well, my heart leapt up this morning when I beheld a Great Spotted Woodpecker in my garden this morning, only the second time I have done so. They always make me think of my friend Andy in our badger group who gets…
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Cryptic Crosswords
I am addicted to them. It’s a family thing – both my brother is and my parents were avid cruciverbalists. I sometimes joke that the Jumbo Cryptic in The Times on Saturdays is the highlight of my week. I do get very excited about it. It was The Independent I turned to for a long…