This is a very good book and a much needed antidote to the confident prognostications of doom and gloom. Sometimes I think it is slightly over optimistic, because the future does strike me as pretty worrying, but without hope for a better, or at least less apocalyptic, future, then there is little incentive to take the actions that we desperately need to take. I recommend that many people read this book, carefully and critically, and seek out the references too. The sensible and pretty clear accounts in the text are let down by some of the words on the cover, in my opinion. If I hadn’t had th ..read more

  It’s difficult being English, and Caroline Lucas has written a helpful book for the English to find their way and for the Irish, Welsh and Scots to cut us all a bit of slack. Being English is not necessarily being a racist skinhead with a cross of St George tattoo.  What is the left of centre route to English patriotism? I wouldn’t have expected such a very good guide from Caroline Lucas, but what would I know? For a long time she has been a stand-out MP with a great command of environmental matters (she has always impressed me and I have been a professional in this area) but this ..read more

This book is one of a series  of Little Books which are little books but they pack a big punch. They will remind many readers of Observer books because they are a similar size, but don’t let the small dimensions make you think that these books are lightweights. Not at all. This volume (I will come to Trees, Beetles and Spiders in future reviews) deals with evolution, biogeography, different taxa of butterflies, behaviour, ecology, anatomy, physiology, curious facts and the place of butterflies in our culture in 160 (little) pages. The book is well illustrated throughout and is written in ..read more

Photo: Lydia MacKinnon Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won the 2013 Forward Prize. His topical verse and satire appears in the Spectator, and his puzzles and problems in the Sunday Times and American Mathematical Monthly. Email: nipmackinnon@gmail.com    Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 58 by Ni ..read more

To make sense of the figures for 2023 UK Hen Harrier numbers, released today by RSPB, they need to be seen in context.  There are five important contextual considerations. There are pretty good estimates of how many pairs of Hen Harriers could exist in different parts of the UK in the absence of illegal persecution and those suggest that, overall, the UK population is at between a third and a fifth of its potential depending on the year. We have a long run of Hen Harrier surveys, carried out in a comparable way, stretching back over three and a half decades (see Table below). There is li ..read more

Hen Harrier survey results 2023: Numbers improve, but much more to be done Numbers of one of the UK’s rarest birds of prey, the Hen Harrier, are increasing across the UK, but their future still hangs in the balance according to a new survey. Results of the 2023 Hen Harrier survey have been released, which show how populations of Hen Harriers are faring throughout the UK and Isle of Man, but it’s a mixed picture, with some populations doing better than in previous years, while others are in decline. The results give some cause for optimism – the UK and Isle of Man population is estimated to be ..read more

Bob Berzins is a campaigner and activist.  His previous guests blogs here all focus on the management, or mismanagement, of upland areas such as the Peak District, Walshaw Moor and the North York Moors. See also his novel Snared. In 2014 and 2015 two surfaced tracks were constructed on the grouse moors of the north east Peak District, both with approval of Natural England. The purpose of Natural England is to help conserve, enhance and manage the natural environment for the benefit of present and future generations. But the impact of these tracks both visually and on the conservation fea ..read more

Christopher Goddard. Photo: Bruce Coutts Christopher Goddard is a cartographer and writer whose hand-drawn guidebooks and maps cover the West Yorkshire landscape in intimate detail. Born in Sheffield, he has lived in Hebden Bridge for nearly 20 years and explored most corners of the area’s moors and woods. There is more information at christophergoddard.net .   Turbine 34: White Swamp SD 98144 33521 ///wealth.rapid.motor Map of walk to T34 White Swamp. Writing a blog about one of the proposed sites of the turbines on the Calderdale Wind Farm is right up my street, an excuse to explore and ..read more

  Kathleen Jamie is Scotland’s National Poet or Makar, and this book is a collection of personal notes, prose poems, micro-essays and fragments. The idea is that they are arranged here like the stones of a cairn.  I was slightly nervous that this might be too ‘literary’ for me – but it wasn’t. Here are some powerful, clear and perceptive accounts, remembrances and observations with a strong environmental flavour. Accounts of demonstrations and protests attended, bird flu on the Bass Rock, a Raven that croaks at you, a yellow hawkbit, thrift and guano. Bits of covid, family, friends ..read more

Mushrooms are fascinating for so many reasons, but not the least of them is that you can eat many of them with relish but if you eat some of them they may constitute your last meal. And so a book nudging you towards picking and using mushrooms has to be pretty strong on the warnings and clear on the identification features. I’m no expert (which is why foraging for fungi seems an exotic and exciting prospect to me) but it seems to me that this book gets the balance between encouragement and caution right. It is a very attractive book thanks to the inherent weirdness and beauty of the mushrooms ..read more