By Richard Bradbury, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science Protecting the best places for wildlife from damage is a huge priority for us at the RSPB. These special places are well known to readers of this blog; Sites of Special Scientific Interest,...

Ninety years ago, the delight from listeners that responded to the BBC broadcasting cellist Beatrice Harrison playing along with nightingales was dramatic. (Imagine 50,000 letters in 1924 translated in to a 21 st century social media reaction!) But...

The plans for live-streaming nightingale song from North Kent on 18 May are moving along. I’m not necessarily helping much as the technology is a bit over my head – but my colleague Brian Reid is regularly giving me comforting updates on progress...

A long time ago, before cassette recorders even, my Dad and I spent hours standing in the back garden pointing a microphone in the general direction of a singing nightingale. The results were mixed. Wind, holding the microphone by hand, planes, dogs...

Last year I led a guided dawn chorus walk and a Redstart Ramble at Sherwood Forest NNR. I was back there again this year with Notts County Council ranger Claire Watson.

It’s great to see the first summer migrants back in the forest, knowing they’ve made...

Futurescapes is about facilitating landscape-scale conservation – homes for nature that are bigger, better and better-connected. In the Cairngorms there is 60% of the 1% left of the full historic extent of the Caledonian Forest. You can go to places...

Our guest bloggers today are Colin Wilkinson, Senior Conservation Officer for the Midlands and Melanie Coath, Senior Policy Officer in our Climate Team.

Today, MPs are debating the future of High Speed Rail in the UK. The Hybrid Bill for HS2 faces its...

Daniel Pullan, the RSPB’s Senior International Casework Officer has returned from the Turks and Caicos Islands with colleagues Sacha Cleminson and James Millett. I recently had the chance to visit a UK biodiversity hot spot - the Turks and Caicos...

Introduction – it’s good to talk and then even better to take action. So, with that in mind, my colleague, Adrian Southern, helped to develop a Change Conversations workshop with our friends and partners Shlomo, Lorraine and Josh Dowen and Andy Hollis...

With just under a week to go until The Big Picture – Greater Thames Photography Competition closes for entries, we are delighted to announce our fourth and final judge, professional wildlife photographer, David Tipling (www.davidtipling.com)!  We...

Introduction by Carl Cornish - when I was out leading a woodpcker walk at Sherwood Forest, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting to Mick and Karen. When they explained their 'On Your Doorstep' project, I asked if they'd write a guest...

With just over a week to go before entry for The Big Picture – Greater Thames Photography Competition closes, we are very excited to announce that Mike Dilger, of the BBC’s the One Show, will be judging the My Place in the Picture category...

Guest post by Conor Jameson, Trusts Development Manager for the RSPB On a spring morning 16 years ago the world woke to news that disaster had hit paradise. It was a new kind of environmental tragedy, involving a reservoir of toxic sludge, and the...

Entries for The Big Picture: Greater Thames Photography Competition have been pouring in and, with just under a month to go before the competition ends, we have a special announcement to make!

Judging our Young Photographer category will be.....

Filmmaker...

Climate change - it’s in the news at the moment so it seems apt for me to be writing this blog.

Last week I facilitated a workshop at Kingsbury Outdoor Education Centre for RSPB colleagues and partners to look at Climate Change Adaptation for the...

In my mission to enthuse people about the special species of Sherwood Forest and show them the amazing wildlife of the Futurescape, I agreed to lead not one but three walks earlier this month to try and see lesser spotted woodpeckers.

Advertising a walk...

Where there is a will there is a way! With no new agri-environment funding currently available and some management that benefits waders not being funded anyway, I have set up a volunteer group so we can start to make a difference now. The Cairngorms Futurescape...

On Sunday the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced that a new garden city of 15,000 homes would be built at Ebbsfleet in Kent.

Only two genuine garden cities have ever been built in Britain, at Welwyn and Letchworth in Hertfordshire, in the early twentieth...

Last month we launched the Big Picture: Greater Thames Futurescape Photography Competition. We are delighted to introduce to you the first our beady-eyed judges!  Our long-standing volunteers, Dave and Mary Braddock, will be judging the Wild About the...

RSPB Cairngorms Futurescape with partner organisations like Butterfly Conservation and the local Ranger Service are kick-starting a conservation volunteer movement in the Strathspey. This is not to do work on RSPB ground, but to help farmers and land...

RSPB Insh Marshes Reserve in the Cairngorms Futurescape will be hosting two demonstration days of the biomass to bioenergy project on the 19 and 20th March. The project aims to turn wetland vegetation (rushes, willow, scrub, and reed) into energy through...

England’s hills a waking from the winter and over the next few weeks life will stream back onto the moors. Lapwings will tumble over the fields fringing the peat-covered higher ground and slowly spring will spread uphill. The crowning glory of...

Today, Planning Minister Nick Boles launched the final version of the on-line National Planning Practice Guidance. You can find his statement, which has a link to the guidance itself, here.

This marks a significant milestone, not only for the implementation...

One of the stars of the launch of the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science this week was a gannet which we, and the University of Exeter, had attached a camera to in Pembrokeshire last year to produce footage which was shown on a big screen at the event...

RSPB scientist Philip Blaen wrote a piece for online newspaper the Huffington Post this week giving the scientific perspective on flooding. 

This coincided with the launch of the RSPB's Centre for Conservation Science. 

The piece uses the bittern story...