environmental commentator
David Blake of Cranborne Chase AONB, Wiltshire shares his thoughts on how farmers can work together to help farmland birds and other wildlife. The South Wiltshire Farmland Bird Project (delivered by the Cranborne Chase AONB) started in 2009 designed specifically at reversing the decline of corn bunting (pic above), grey partridge, lapwing, tree sparrow, turtle … Continue reading Bunting’s hero
Whole countries (or even a Hollywood star on Mars) have relied on the potato. The chips were down when Matt Damon, marooned on the Red Planet, discovers his only of bag of spuds and propagates a life-saving crop within his space hut. The potato has the accolade as being the first ever crop grown in … Continue reading Martian spud
Advances in vet and human medicines may have unintended consequences for the environment. A few years ago a pest controller told me how lucky I was to live in one of the UK’s most rural counties (Powys). He added that, due to the prevalence of livestock farming, worm parasites were a problem for not only … Continue reading Nobel dung
The Game Fair was a meeting place for all those interesting in the countryside (revised July 2025). Not just in fieldsports, but in all conservation activities intrinsic to the countryside. Away from PR departments, media spinners, membership targets, HQ directives, people from eNGOs, farming, birding, walking, shooting, hunting, fishing interests swapped anecdotal stories, compared notes, … Continue reading Game on for conservation conversations
The excitement around rewilding must be harnessed by the widest cross-section of society, if it is to find a place as a conservation ‘tool’. To be honest, I like the idea of a few unfettered landscapes with large predatory animals lurking in the undergrowth. Untamed countryside complete with deep growl, loud snort and piercing scream. … Continue reading Nature with teeth
Not a blade of grass goes to waste in Transylvania. I meet the stare from nine men each with a razor sharp scythe standing on the hill above me. After asking if I have whisky, one of them lets me swing the simple yet perfectly balanced grass cutting implement a couple of times; stopping to sharpen … Continue reading Intensive bucolic
I want a thriving uplands. Can you see my head? Just. An ‘iconic’ upland bird found only in heathery spots in the UK. Humans strive to manage habitat and control predators so that I produce good numbers to be flushed wild to the gun. Contrary to what you may hear, work is in progress on … Continue reading Fair Game
Extraordinary experiences with raptors make for deeper thoughts (refreshed Nov 2022, Jan 2024) I lie in a rowing boat, rod to one side, drifting across the lake in the Welsh mountains listening to brown trout rising. Gazing up, my eyes focus on two spots getting larger by the second…they loom into view, I realise it’s … Continue reading Raptor brutal
The local authority voice was apologetic, ‘I’m sorry but once in the planning system, we have to insist on further ecology surveys – even if the application is to enlarge a pond for wildlife.’ My client, as passionate a naturalist as about doing the right paperwork, let out an exasperated sigh. He had already paid for … Continue reading A precautionary pond
For three hundred and sixty five days a year we jostle, stamp, cajole, consume, and survive alongside nature. Which itself is, of course, trying to do exactly the same. Except that we humans are somewhat more dominant in the age of Anthropocene. In 2010, I published a journalistic debate paper ‘New demands; old countryside‘ (pdf) … Continue reading Dead Poets
