At the weekend I carried out the first visit to 'my' BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey square (somewhere on the Cambridge/Northants border). You'll remember that Saturday was a hot day - but less so at 6am as I started the survey. Like...

Swallows have a remarkably cosmopolitan distribution and breed across much of the Northern hemisphere from North America to Europe and on through Asia. Outside the breeding season they move south; European birds flying to Africa south of the Sahara from...

All the occupied starling nestboxes on Hope Farm successfully fledged 50 of the 52 chicks that were ringed and monitored for body condition, a phenomenal success rate considering the cold spring, and the fact we can't remember the last time any meaningful...

We did some sums the other day to look at how much financial investment the RSPB has put into trying to get the farmland bird index heading upwards. The answer is a large amount of money but the index still refuses to head upwards! However, our £16m...

In the departmental budget cuts announced yesterday the UK government cut an average of 1.2% off government department budgets (in addition to the 0.5% cuts introduced by the last government). Defra is cut by 5.3% and Decc by 2.7%.