This morning two buzzards and a red kite soared in interlocking circles in the warm air high above my garden. Quite what this interaction of two distinct species meant is beside the point. We were looking at a very conspicuous example, as close to home as it could possibly be, of rewilding. Technically the buzzard… Continue reading
Browsing Category Conservation
Could the little cirl bunting inspire the rebuilding of our countryside?
We must take the cirl bunting as an emblem of hope for the 2020s, and many decades to follow. This pretty, but insignificant, bird was saved from likely extinction in the UK not by the bird-loving public fitting up more bird boxes and putting out more feed, but by giving public money to farmers. It… Continue reading →
Could housing go green as planners develop 2020 vision?
BBC Radio 4’s Start the week (Monday January 6) took the starting-the-New-Year theme of rebuilding, and featured as one of its subjects an innovative prize-winning council housing project in Norwich. But how innovative? David Mikhail, whose architectural practice won last year’s Stirling Prize for this scheme, told presenter Andrew Marr what they had created there,… Continue reading →
National Trust puts a price on bluebells
Ashridge, the National Trust estate on the Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire border, is one of the top places in the UK to see bluebells, according to surveys. In 2016 it decided to charge visitors to see the bluebells at some of the best locations on the 5000 acre estate. Is putting a price on our ‘national… Continue reading →
Appeal launched to buy vital piece of River Thames wildlife jigsaw
Stop press: BBOWT raises £575,001.23 (100%) by close of appeal 30th September. Chimney Meadows, on the banks of the River Thames near Bampton in Oxfordshire, is one of the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust’s biggest and most important nature reserves, vital habitat for otters and endangered wading birds. In 2004, with the help of its… Continue reading →
Sleek and silent killer returns to the skies of an English market town
A pair of peregrine falcons is raising a single chick on a nesting platform at the top of the 200 feet high County Hall in the centre of the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury. The falcons have been nesting here since 2011, and I don’t think our sense of wonder should diminish. All round the world, totemic… Continue reading →