Author: Julian Rota
-
Chris Packham and the North Dorset Hunt Sabs, Protect the Wild on the right to protest, Las Vegas, Mandelson and Starmer
The image above is from: Thorburn (Archibald). British Mammals. Two volumes. Longmans, Green & Co., 1920-1921. Chris Packham and his step-daughter Megan McCubbin spent five hours out with the North Dorset Hunt Sabs on a rather grey and wet day following and monitoring the notorious Blackmore and Sparkvale Hunt (BSV). They and the sabs refused…
-
Crosswords, Rupert Brooke and Jeffrey Archer, AI, zoos in trouble, the Environmental Investigation on Whaling, news from the Hare Preservation Trust and Mark Kermode on ‘Melania’ the movie
Images in this post are from: Thorburn (Archibald). British Mammals. Two volumes. Longmans, Green & Co., 1920-1921. I have now finished Pretty girl in crimson rose (8), a memoir of love, exile and crosswords by Sandy Balfour and it has been a delight throughout. The last few chapters include examples of what might be called…
-
HS2, Starmer, bird flu
HS2 There is an incident in the episode of Landman (with the ever excellent Billy Bob Thornton) which I watched yesterday in which people and the feral pigs they were hunting with assault rifles are killed by a gas leak. The gas is identified as HS2. I didn’t know what that was so looked it…
-
Elephant rescues, fox hunting, trees, Peter Mandelson, and Kuala Lumpur house keys
Elephants Two more Thai elephant rescues to bring tears to your eyes. We first see all three elephants in chains, two of them repeatedly swaying their heads in stereotypical behaviour indicating depression and despair caused by their confinement and cruel mistreatment. That behaviour continues but dwindles during the long journeys to the wonderful Lek Chailert’s…
-
Pheasant shooting – the insanity
The image above is from Gould (John). The Birds of Great Britain, 1862-1873. A lively debate in the pub last night on a subject I often try to avoid or change because I tend to get overheated to say the least. Of the four people involved two were completely against me, one didn’t say much,…
-
Avatar
Yesterday I finally watched Avatar, the movie released in 2009 which I had avoided on the basis of extremely mixed reviews from friends. The driver was surprising – George Monbiot. I have been continuing with his book of articles for The Guardian (see previous posts), mostly through the section dealing with the super-rich, the ‘pollutocrats’,…
-
-
Van Gogh
Winchester Science Centre, which opened in 2002: I very rarely use AI on my photos, hardly ever in fact, but I did here to remove the parked cars from the foreground because who wants to look at those? AI is brilliant for this. I confess it was very useful for perfectly translating the bookseller’s description…
-
Dogs, manuscripts and ephemera
I’ve realised I can set my watch by the Great Spotted Woodpecker. She arrives each morning between 10.20 and 10.25 and feeds for about five minutes. Mostly, the smaller birds hang back but not one brave Great Tit who joined the GSW at the feeder this morning. The photo shows her with her tail curved…
-
Sly Dunbar, Rest in Power
It is impossible to overstate the importance of drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare in the story of Jamaican music. The Riddim Twins played with and / or produced songs and albums by just about every reggae artist around. These are just some of them: Peter Tosh, Culture, The Mighty Diamonds, Dennis Brown, Gregory…
-
Nature loss, the ogre in charge, police and border officers, dairy farming, headlights and parking, phone culture, and stained glass
Nature loss – not good says DEFRA “Nature loss is a national security risk, intelligence group warns”. The DEFRA (DEATHRA) report according to the BBC states that “The decline in the health of nature around the world poses a threat to the UK’s security and prosperity.” The document warns of “cascading risks” from the degradation…
-
Birds and a squirrel, more from ‘Pretty girl in crimson rose (8)’, travels in Sweden and Turkey and an alarming plane stopover in Russia, wildlife art, the monster across the pond
The Grey Squirrel has been at the feeder for ages this morning, really feasting on the peanuts. As I headed to the summerhouse I suddenly realised he or she was wonderfully close to me and had not heard me coming. When awareness of my presence did come, there was no panic or rush to get…
-
Pretty girl in crimson rose (8)
Pretty girl in crimson rose (8), a memoir of love, exile and crosswords, by Sandy Balfour, Atlantic Books, 2004. A lovely phone call which made my day yesterday from a client who was especially pleased with a book he had ordered (Twelve Sonnets, by George Faludy, translated by Robin Skelton, Pharos Press, Victoria, British Columbia, 1983,…
-
More George Monbiot, Birdwatch
George Monbiot’s How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature, Verso, 2016, continues to shine. In ‘Civilisation is Boring’ his prose really takes flight, soars and sings. He quotes the pioneering conservationist Aldo Leopold: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds ……
-
MBR Acres acquittal, Brian May & Glastonbury, Cobalt, Orca dialects, Carden International Circus
Food elsewhere is no doubt scarce as the cold weather continues to bite, so there is as much varied bird life in the garden as there ever is. In just the last ten minutes I have seen no fewer than six Jackdaws, a pair of Greenfinches (not seen for a while), a Chaffinch, Robins, Blackbirds,…
-
The Bayeux Tapestry, AI and Only Connect, George Monbiot on Lost Youth
-3.6 Celsius in the summerhouse this morning. I even had trouble getting in since the bolt on the door was frozen solid. Slowly it is warming up. The iced spider web above really stands out against the ivy and the fence – I much prefer this weather to the grey, rainy gloom of yesterday. The…
-
Gordon Buchanan and Me; flea treatments for domestic animals; Peregrine Falcons, the illegal trade; George Monbiot
The image above is of a hand-coloured lithograph from Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, 1845-1848. I have pretty strong preferences when it comes to tv wildlife presenters. Ones I like and respect include Chris Packham, Liz Bonnin, Hamza Yassin, David Lindo and Steve Backshall. I despise the fraudulent Bear Grylls and my aversion to…
-
RSPB Magazine & BTO News
RSPB Winter/Spring 2026 Chief executive Beccy Speight enjoys the “gentle purring” of Turtle Doves in Italy and takes from it a call to action and Yellowhammers are on the rise at RSPB’s Hope Farm. In both cases a primary factor in downturns has been intensive agricultural practices leading to a decline in wildflower seeds on…
-
Birdwatch, Thylacine extinction, Penguins in prison, HS2, Pheasants and Woodcock, Ticks
Above, a little celebration of snow in the garden. The other photos in this post are from a folder on my PC which I had forgotten and were taken in 2018. I used a trailcam a lot then and seem mostly to have recorded squirrels, but I had not remembered the visits of a Jay.…
-
Hercules the Bear
My only new year resolution is to get a new prescription for my glasses, long overdue. It is such an expense though (with a spare pair plus sunglasses) that I have been deferring it for over a year. The mornings of the second and third days of the year were spent unblocking a drain and…
-
Annunciation
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, brother of Jacob, has made an announcement. Her name is Italian for annunciation, usually taken to refer to the appearance of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. As if that family did not already have enough of a sense of its own importance. People who want to see an end to trail…
-
Open borders
Something to which humanity might aspire rather than celebrate closing? With a nod to Zack Polanski, and my dear, late brother Willmie, this is my thought for Christmas Day (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) – Imagine there’s no heavenIt’s easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us,…
-
British Wildlife Magazine November 2025 and Labour’s animal welfare proposals
Volume 37 number 2 Cath Jeffs opens this issue asking whether European Wildcats might return to south-west England. They were declared functionally extinct in the UK in 2019 but there are ongoing efforts to restore a population in Scotland. They are a different species from Domestic Cats. They are larger, have thicker fur, a banded,…
-
Empathy and gratitude; foxes, raptors, swans, cows, deer, legal matters and more
The Kennet & Avon Canal played a large role in my year and my enjoyment of the summer in particular. The photo above and two of those below were taken in the cold winter of 2010 when the canal partly froze over. Wildlife rescue in the face of wildlife persecution A World We No Longer…
-
Thames Water, Open Cages, Foxhunting, Rachel Reeves, and more Wildlife
The image above and those that follow are from the beautiful setting for food and drink after a funeral we attended last week for the father of a friend, The Old Mill just outside Aldermaston. It was a powerfully moving Catholic service and although I am not religious I do rather like the High Church…
-
Ben Elton; the ex-prince and the royal art collection; good and bad news for nature
I have recently finished Ben Elton’s autobiography and enjoyed it very much – he is at the very least always easy to read. He was at Manchester University not long before me and as students we adored The Young Ones. He has of course been extraordinarily prolific and I read several of his many novels…
-
Egyptian Geese, Otters, British Wildlife and Keith Richards
Egyptian Geese The photo above was taken at Ranworth Broad in Norfolk in 2023, a lovely place with a floating visitor centre. They are strange looking birds and seem to be a classic example of a misnomer. I can’t remember where I saw this but they are not really geese, or as far as I…
-
Sarcastic Fringehead
This crazy name came up in a short multiple choice quiz set by the £1m winner of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? It is, it turns out, a fish, so named for its highly aggressive, territorial behaviour. I suppose sarcasm can be a relatively gentle form of aggression but I still don’t really get…
-
An oaken sett survey
Another adjectival word for oak trees is, delightfully, “quercine”. It’s an oak at the head of this post. For once I see no harm in revealing the location of our badger group’s planning and infrastructure related survey: Sandleford Park in Newbury. This has been hugely controversial since 2012. The original application was for 360 new…
-
Bulls, foxes, auks
There is no particular reason for the bird pictures in this post other than as decoration but it was good to see the stunning Nuthatch and two Blue Tits on a feeder at the same time. The Sparrowhawk is still around – as usual I only saw her from the corner of my eye but…
-
Birds, butterflies, fish, orcas and other mammals, deer, foxes, capitalism gone wrong, Merwin, Blake & Tolkien
Birdwatch magazine November 2025 Issue 401 A Crossbill on the cover this month, a kind of finch with bills specially adapted to enable them to extract seeds from pine cones. Which does leave them with restricted potential habitats. The various species “with so many subtle clines in both features and calls, the genus Loxa poses…
-
Ivy flowers, WordPress nags, a canal journalist, chuckwallahs, Wild Justice, planning, autumn leaves, penguins in prison, a butterfly healer, Hamza Yassin, Hitchens and Fry on the Catholic church, and first fungi of the year
I have often read that ivy is a superb food source for pollinators late in the year but never really witnessed it. But the ivy in the garden this year is absolutely bursting with flowers and literally abuzz with insect life. I think these are mostly hoverflies. There was a white-tailed bee too. I haven’t…
-
Savernake Forest: fungi, lots of fungi and a Treecreeper
Savernake Forest, just outside Marlborough, Wiltshire, is privately owned and seems very well looked after for its wildlife, in spite of its being managed by Forestry England. The Marquess of Allesbury and his son the Earl of Cardigan are the owners. It has SSSI status for the diversity and in particular ancient oak trees and…
-
Boris, Spider Webs, Country Music, Fungi and the Animal Cruelty Prism
Heathcote Williams’ book about Boris Johnson duly arrived. Rather than Boris Johnson: The Beast of Brexit – A Study in Depravity, 2019, which was what had attracted me, I have instead the earlier Brexit Boris, from Mayor to Nightmare, Public Reading Rooms, 2016. I tired of it pretty quickly – too much has already been…
-
Royal Babylon and an accounting error
As mentioned in my previous post, I purchased Heathcote Williams’ Royal Babylon; the Case Against the Monarchy. The only way to do so without too much expense was through Google Play Books. Very unsatisfactory – none of the pleasure of an actual book and none of the advantages of, for example, a Kindle version. It…
-
Tolkien and cars and Heathcote Williams, Badgers, Reggae, Cranes, Michael Palin in Venezuela, Eating Swans, Sparrows, Deer, a Butterfly, Elephants, Parakeets and Zack Polanski
Badger survey A good day on Sunday. Firstly a badger sett survey in the Arborfield area. We didn’t find a sett but there are definitely badgers about, as evidenced by hairs found on wire fencing (our ace finder of such things always dives down when he sees a push-through) and what was almost certainly a…
-
Return to Farmoor, Ragwort, Slang, Starmer and Digital ID, RSPB Magazine
I much enjoyed my first visit to Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire at the beginning of the year: Farmoor Reservoir – Animal Wild I planned to return and having acquired an electric bike in the interim much looked forward to cycling round, easily covering the distance so that I could be where the birds were. Thames…
-
R.I.P. Dr Jane Goodall
A ground breaking advocate for animals – and people. Gentle, compassionate, kind, wise. A great loss to the world. But her voice and her spirit live on. “The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
-
Elephants, Cane Toads and a Southern Oak Bush-cricket
I took the picture above on my first safari in Tanzania and it was almost the first of the trip and I think one of my best, not because of any skill with the camera but because of the way it depicts the profound and emotional relationship between the two elephants greeting each other with…
-
Birdwatch magazine October 2025, Choughs, the Isle of Wight, hard drugs and the latest from Starmer
Issue 400 Birdwatch magazine celebrates 400 issues. As ever much of it is too twitchy for me, but the photos alone of the rare Red-flanked Bluetail, as on the cover, are worth the price of admission. I confess to having wanted to see a Chough for a long time though (a black corvid with strikingly…
-
The Abyss
Firstly, another mention of Michael McCarthy’s Fergus the Silent, Youcaxton Publications, 2021. I wrote previously that “it’s a novel and the first fiction I’ve read for perhaps fifteen or twenty years. I have discovered that it is common to middle-aged men suddenly to stop reading fiction and it came to me out of the blue that…
-
Back to Bradford on Avon
The primary purpose of this trip was to pick up the Bath Two Tunnels Circuit and cycle through the Combe Down Tunnel which promises an unusual audio-visual experience. That was an epic fail. I tried to drive to Tucking Aqueduct and to pick up the trail in various other places, but I had no joy.…
-
Trees, water, ploughing, recycling, parties and politics
“I have signed up to the Tree Registry (£18 a year), a database of some 80,000 “champion” trees in Britain and Ireland. Individual entries are highly detailed: genus, species, height, diameter and girth, length of extra stems, recorder’s name, grid reference, owner’s name and address and year planted, when known. Sometimes there are photos. The…
-
British Wildlife Magazine August 2025
Volume 36 number 8 It seems quite brave to put a ‘humble’, unglamorous fern on the cover, but I love ferns so it works for me. Specifically it’s a Rustyback Fern, Asplenium ceterach. This issue opens with the last of the Wilding for Conservation series, 26 articles, a reflective piece by Rob Fuller and Guy…
-
Chimpanzees and Sparrowhawks and Dr Dolittle
Not my own photograph at the head of this post (all photos on this blog are mine unless stated otherwise). I watched this last night: Violent Chimpanzees That Attack Villages and Steal Children | Our World Some of it is hard to see. I’ve long felt that the trouble with Chimpanzees is that they are…
-
Arts & Crafts at The Base, Greenham
The Base is purpose-built and opened in 2019. There’s a large gallery, studios, a workshop and a café. I once attended a talk there but have not previously taken advantage of the rich exhibitions of work by local artists. Yesterday was a special Arts & Crafts fair. I find such things can be very disappointing,…
-
Wasps
Wasps. The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect, by Eric R. Eaton, Princeton University Press, 2021. The author has worked as an entomologist for institutions including the Smithsonian and is the lead author of the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America amongst other claims to fame. Who hasn’t been annoyed by wasps on…
-
Oxford Museum of Natural History
I managed to park remarkably nearby at a whopping £15.40 for two hours. Paying for parking is like light bulbs: things are supposed to be better and easier but actually are just more complicated and frustrating. I went to the museum on a whim yesterday, wondering why it had been so long since my last…
-
From the heart of Bath to the outskirts of Bristol; the Sparrowhawk; Fergus the Silent; Patrick Galbraith
The Bristol and Bath railway path was the first major project undertaken by Sustrans. It’s more or less flat of course and asphalt all the way. I didn’t feel the need to continue on into Bristol – this had already been my most urban bike ride this year by far – so I turned around…
-
The Great Auk
The Great Auk, Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife by Tim Birkenhead, Bloomsbury Sigma, 2025. I have already written about this book briefly when it was reviewed in British Wildlife magazine. Of at least two other books I have said that there’s a danger with those about a single species that they can…
-
Phoenix Trail, a double rainbow, a Sparrowhawk in the garden and a bird murder raffle
The Phoenix Trail I parked just outside Princes Risborough and easily picked up the Phoenix Trail which runs on variably surfaced paths to Thame, about a fifteen mile round trip. It was very peaceful and runs through wooded sections and arable fields, with great views of the Chiltern Hills. It’s also a sculpture trail with…
-
AI Reggae, Radioactive Rhinos, BTO News and the Art of Andy Goldsworthy
BTO News Autumn 2025, Issue 356 I am glad the gulls on the cover are identified inside or I wouldn’t have a clue – they are Herring Gulls. This is an exceptional issue of the magazine from the British Trust for Ornithology. Right away there’s a link to the Cuckoo tracking site, Cuckoo Tracking Project…
-
The Kennet & Avon Canal Part XIII – mission accomplished
Trowbridge to Bath Spa So, I have done it. Every inch, except for the part owned by the Oracle shopping centre in Reading where I was not allowed to go (it seems to be run as a sort of autonomous police state), and most of it twice, once in each direction. As I reached my…
-
Birdwatch magazine September 2025 – and my animal rescue volunteering comes to an end
Oxfordshire Wildlife Rescue was due no volunteers at all on Monday afternoon so I went in. Usually it’s Wednesdays for me. But from now on it will be not at all. As I wrote recently I have been volunteering for well over a decade. I left Trindledown and HART for a variety of reasons (more…
-
A Robin in the Summerhouse; a Drunken Wasp; Birds, Beasts & Bedlam (book review) and a bit of Star Trek
It’s hardly the first time I have fished a wasp out of a pint of lager. They do, apparently, become intoxicated by alcohol (not the case for all animals). I fetched a spoon, fished him out and tipped him onto the table as gently as possible. He seemed to stagger around for a bit, giving…
-
British Wildlife Magazine June 2025
Volume 36 number 7 This is the first of two issues I have waiting for me. I love the magazine but it takes a fair while to read and digest. The Yellowhammer on the cover seems to be there purely for the joy of it. I have only seen two and those were distant glimpses.…
-
The Starling: a Biography
The Starling: a Biography, by Stephen Moss, Square Peg, 2024. Stephen Moss is a prolific author and I have read and enjoyed many of his works. And I am extremely fond of Starlings. The stunning dust-wrapper image is from: Lilford (Lord, Thomas Littleton Powys). Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands. Seven volumes. …
-
Do Giraffes Grieve? The Inner Life of Animals.
WILD LIONS of Tanzania HUNT GIANTS | Full Wildlife Documentary Do giraffes grieve? Yes, with not a scintilla of doubt in my mind having watched this beautiful if sometimes harrowing documentary – nature red in tooth and claw. We see lionesses hunting and killing a giraffe – almost nothing goes to waste, other predators and…
-
The Kennet & Avon Canal part XII
Seend Cleeve to Trowbridge The canal and its banks were lovely as ever but this was the least enjoyable section of my journey. Only ten miles all round but I am finding ten miles of extreme rattling and shaking is becoming increasingly unpleasant. The bike has been stellar and it is amazing that I have…
-
Birdwatch, BBOWT, BTO and RSPB magazines, Camp Beagle and a little bit of wonderful news
Beginning with the good news, two Dorset hunts, following convictions for illegal activities, have been asked not to to attend an agricultural show. I have only ever been to one and absolutely hated it. This might seem a small victory but it seems significant to me. They parade their appallingly abused hounds at these events,…