It's quite interesting, isn't it, that the Government is getting into a bit of a tight spot over forestry sell-offs and lease-offs.  People aren't uniformly enthusiastic about small government when it comes to slimming down the Forestry Commission and handing things over to Big Society.  And to be fair, it's difficult to find much of Big Society that seems terribly keen on it either.

I was at an excellent…

There's been a flurry of publicity for Songbird Survival over the last week - mostly in The Times.  This organisation, which I always think as being more anti-predator than pro-songbird, and anti-raptor in particular (but maybe I have got them wrong), may be funding the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust to cull some crows and see whether songbirds flourish.  Good luck to them - but I hope they take more notice of…

I can remember that 1973 , when Dutch elm disease was seeing off millions of elm trees, was National Tree Planting Year.  We were all exhorted to 'Plant a tree in '73' - I don't believe I did though.

This year is United Nations International Year of Forests and the government's plans for our forests seem to have the potential to unite this nation against the government.  It is fascinating how everyone…

Get on with the Big Garden Birdwatch - we'll talk forests tomorrow!

I notice that colleagues I have worked with in Defra and statutory agencies are moving on - some are taking early reitrement others are taking voluntary redundancy and yet others have lost their jobs.

Natural England is, as much earlier revealed in this blog, shedding 400 jobs this year of the 800 that will go from the organisation over the next few years.

Here at the RSPB we are making difficult decisions about which…

I guess I stand a better chance of seeing a waxwing in my garden during Big Garden Birdwatch this year than any year for ages - but I'm not holding my breath. 

However, in this 'waxwing winter' I am sure that many more of us (even if it won't be me) will see these attractive birds this year. Have a look at the Birdtrack graph to see how much commoner they are this year.

There have been some lucky folk…

When I've done the Big Garden Birdwatch over the last few years I have often seen a blackcap in my Northamptonshire garden. I hardly ever see them in the normal course of events - they seem to be a bird that takes a bit of spotting.

And mostly we think of blackcaps as being summer visitors - they are warblers after all - that arrive in spring and whose songs light up the spring and summer days.

But over the last…

Yesterday afternoon we held a Parliamentary reception with the Minerals Products Association.  This celebrated the good work that a growing number of mineral extraction companies are doing to create wildlife-rich sites after they have dug big holes in the ground.

The Minister, Richard Benyon, was present and was given a bit of a poke by industry about the loss of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (see earlier b…

You are going to participate in Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend aren't you?

Fisheries and almost-everything-else Minister, Richard Benyon, is coming under pressure from fellow fishermen to allow culling of cormorants in their breeding season.  We work closely with fishermen on a range of issues such as the Severn Barrage, river pollution and the Water Framework Directive but some of them are a bit bonkers.  No you…

Have you all been ‘fish fighting’ to support the good work being done by the various celebrity chefs but particularly Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall? The C4 series of Fish Fight programmes highlighted the dire state of many of our favourite fish and I think it’s fantastic that the big bright TV spotlight is shone on these issues. The RSPB and many other environmental organisations have been working on fisheries…

Yesterday's blog was on the subject of the ongoing unacceptable declines in farmland birds.  This was covered by the press last week including by the Guardian, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

Defra is already reviewing the working of the Entry Level Scheme - a wildlife-friendly grant scheme for farmers in England.  Around 70% of farmed land in England is covered by the scheme so that getting it right should deliver…

On Friday, government released the dullest possible version of the 2009 changes in bird numbers in England.  This is not news - it's been covered in this blog before - but this is now as official as it can be.

Between 2008 and 2009 the farmland bird index fell to its lowest level since records began and so did the index of woodland birds.  Just have a look at Figures 1 and 2 of the government release - the graphs of…

The dawn did not come up like thunder over the Cambridgeshire Fens this morning.  I was at the Nene Washes long before sunrise and the light grew gradually, seeping out from behind the clouds, sneaking out, strolling at me rather than rushing.  Wildfowlers with their dogs were heading back to their cars as I headed along the floodbank and another hunter, a barn owl, had a last lethal look for voles. 

It was easy to know…

Today I am off on a train to Brussels to talk about lead ammunition.

At a time of reducing funding for nature conservation it is good to be able to talk about some good news.  An ambitious programme to return the world’s heaviest flying bird to the UK has been given a considerable lift from the European Union by the award of a €2.2m grant from the EU LIFE+ fund.

The project is run by a partnership of the Great Bustard Group, the RSPB, University of Bath and Natural England. 

Very few people will have heard of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund - but it is a victim of government cuts.

The Aggregates Levy is a levy on industries who dig minerals out of the ground which has essentially been hypothecated to be spent on local environmental projects. 

And, yes, the RSPB benefitted from some of this money (because we sent in good bids for it) over the years. In fact we benefitted to the tune…

This is the last remaining bit of our wheat from Hope Farm - about 150t apparently.

And saleable at c£185/t at the moment.  Close to £30k worth.

The weekend after next, around half a million people, maybe more maybe fewer, will take part in Big Garden Birdwatch.

It's become a tradition in many homes for everyone, young and old to settle down together for an hour and note the birds coming to their garden.  And these observations, over a period of over 30 years, have helped to chart the ups and downs of our garden birds.  They have shown the fall of the house…

Take a look at our updated, revamped volunteering pages.

I first volunteered for the RSPB at the age of 17 - as a voluntary warden at Arne.  The then warden, Bryan Pickess, handed me the envelope with me A-level results in it.  That was long before the days of texts and emails!

I enjoyed the experience, learned a bit, and contributed a bit too.  I dimly remember counting cars passing by on the road, counting birds, spotting…

I feel a bit for Defra over the subject of flogging off the family trees - the nation is up in arms over it.  But it's not clear what 'it' is yet.

Every now and then Caroline Spelman produces reassurances in the media or parliament which actually look quite reassuring - see here, here and here. and yet the subject does not go away (see here, here, here and here).  Let's wait and see what the consultation says…

Thinking back to the Oxford Farming Conference, one of the commonly voiced 'facts', often voiced by the NFU, is that we are going to need to increase production to feed the growing world population.  Often this is put in terms of the world population increasing by 50%, but dietary changes meaning that food production must increase by 100% (ie double).

So I was interested to read this report (and this editorial

Provided he can spot a bit of codswallop it doesn't matter too much whether or not the Fisheries Minister can recognise a cod.

The seas around us used to be much richer in wildlife - it's difficult for us to recognise the changes because most of us can't get out and mix it in the marine world.  But the fisheries data are stark from across the world.  Here's a rather outdated link for cod in the North Sea…

I see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall gave the Fisheries (but also 'almost-everything-else', it sometimes seems) Minister, Richard Benyon, an identification test the other day on which the Minister scored fairly low marks.  This makes for good television, and I’m sure the Minister took it quite well, because he’s that kind of bloke, but it hardly gets to the heart of Ministerial competence.

Fish identification…

The RSPB has been working in Wales for 100 years,

Have a look at the timeline of what we have got up to.

I'm afraid I don't have a picture of a dragon so I've used a roseate tern - one of the species that RSPB was first engaged with in Wales and one of the species that I was first engaged with for the RSPB.

Sir David Attenborough says that knowing about nature is very important.

He's so right.