The last two months of 2018 were fairly quiet on the UK birding front due to holidays and work trips, so I’ve combined November and December into one short blog post. November got off to a reasonable start with a brief early morning visit to Connaught Water in Epping Forest. I do a WeBS [...]

If you’d like to learn more about the Critically Endangered Sociable Lapwing, I’ll be giving a talk this week for the Bromley RSPB Local Group. The talk is on Wednesday 9th January at the Bromley United Reformed Church, Widmore Road, BR1 1RY. Doors open at about 6.30pm and the talk is scheduled to start [...]

Previous blogs on the subject of licensed Raven killing have shown that in England the numbers being legally killed are increasing. See here. Ravens are being killed in Wales to protect livestock and to protect non-native pheasants. See here. In summary the total number of licences issued between January 2014 and July 2018 in [...]

On Friday I attended the New Networks for Nature conference in Stamford. This year was the 10th Anniversary conference and it was the first time I’d attended, and it certainly won’t be the last. New Networks for Nature is a broad alliance of creators and brings together poets, authors, scientists, film-makers, visual artists, environmentalists, [...]

Since 2013 I’ve been working with Sakib Ahmed and Sayam Chowdhury in Bangladesh to survey River Lapwings (Vanellus duvaucelii). There is very little published data on the species yet it is almost certainly declining, indeed it is classified as Near Threatened by BirdLife International, and is considered Endangered within Bangladesh. The global population is [...]

Yesterday I came across a Tweet that had been promoted on Rosie Woodroffe’s Twitter timeline. It was from an account I’d not come across before – Eat Wild @LetsEatWild The account appears to have been online since August 2018 and has been set up to help us ‘think differently about game’ – different from [...]

The first week of October was spent on Shetland, which had got off to a good start in the last few days of September with Sabine’s Gull and Melodious Warbler. The weather was dominated by strong westerlies and migrants were rather thin on the ground, but there were still a few welcome surprises. A [...]

Last week was International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. Since then I’ve come across a number of lead ammunition related snippets that are worth sharing: Fragment 1. Here is a neat video which summarises the key issues around the use of toxic lead ammunition: Otto goes non-toxic There is some accompanying text too which is [...]

This week from the 21st to the 27th October is the international lead poisoning prevention week, which focuses on eliminating lead paint. The week is organised and promoted by various United Nations agencies including UN Environment and the World Health Organisation. You can read more about the initiative here and here. The World Health [...]

The focus for early September was the local patch of Wanstead Flats and a few visits to the Old Sewage Works and Wanstead Park thrown in for good measure. The Red-backed Shrike that had been around since the 28th August, continued to be present in Pub Scrub on the eastern part of Wanstead Flats, [...]