Waxwings - I actually went out looking for them in east Northants yesterday and failed completely despite many recent local records. Did see lots of rowan berries, industrial estates and redwings though! Will I ever see a waxwing this winter?
Farmland birds - a short blog of a week ago has attracted a large number of comments - mostly from a so-called 'Essex peasant' otherwise known as Essex farmer and NFU mouthpiece Guy Smith. The comments are mostly longer than the original blog! Guy has problems with Hope Farm, the Farmland Bird Index, and most things that the RSPB does. Makes for an interesting read if you are interested in that type of thing.
Dancing - now is the time to download Bird is the word to try to get it to be the Christmas Number 1.
Last date to order from the RSPB before Christmas - 15 December.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
One of my favourite Laurel and Hardy skecthes is where for some reason the pair end up throwing water at each other but half way through, Oliver stops and says "This is ridiculous, we're behaving like a couple of children". Stan says "Well you started it" and Olly replies "no I didn't" and promptly starts the fight again.
Either way, call me a bit precious but I have taken farmer groups to RSPB Grange farm and I did donate a barn owl box and I have never said or written a bad word about Grange Farm ( apart from the name change - as above) so I don't know why Mark suggests the contrary, maybe he could explain.
Meanwhile, we can indeed monitor the positivity and negativity from either party.
Paysan savant