Is it time to call in the ghostbusters at BTO's 'haunted' head office - The Nunnery - in Norfolk?

                                                          

What's on the the other side of the library window? Could it be . . ? 

HALLOWE'EN can be a nervy time - especially after dark- at the BTO's head office in Thetford, Norfolk.

The Nunnery is said to be a haunted building where mugs and other items jump about on shelves, and various squeaks, thuds  and scratches are sometimes to be heard.

According to one report, the remains of long-deceased nuns were inadvertently unearthed when a new floor was laid in the 12th Century chapel.

Curiously, though, the only 'ghost' is not female. 'It' is  a phantom male butler.

Between 1994-96, David Lindo, the Urban Birder, worked as head of membership at the BTO, and was slightly unnerved by the tales he heard.

In a conversation with longtime BTO employee and head of communications Mike Toms, David said: "I was a little bit scared.

"Nothing untoward happened to me, but when you come from London to work in  the countryside, it's understandable to be a little apprehensive - especially if  you're fed stories of certain nightly scenarios.

"It's like that film, Zombies, as soon as the light started to fade, I jumped into my car and was away!"

In response, Mike Toms conceded that the chapel had a certain 'ambience' but insisted: "I've never felt threatened.

"On the contrary, there is a welcoming feeling -The Nunnery is a wonderful place to work."

* David Lindo's conversation with Mike Toms can be viewed on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQqQJna7Dw&t=2563s

                        

Nothing to fear! These fearless birders took part in  last month's BTO Young Leaders course. But to be on the safe side, it was held not at The Nunnery but a guaranteed spook-free site in the New Forest. 

Bringing back the good times for Nature - rewilding plan confirmed for extensive estate in Cairngorms

Could the capercaillie be restored to the Dalnacardoch Estate which lies between   Blair Atholl and Dalwhinnie?

AN estate that has long been managed for game shooting is to undergo 'rewilding'.

The Jersey-based Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust confirmed today that it had taken out a 100-year lease on the 18,500-acre Dalnacardoch Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, with a view to "restoring the habitats and ecological processes" of a bygone era.

One of the species that it particularly wants to bring back is the capercaillie which has been declining so rapidly that it faces extinction in Scotland.

Says the Trust: "Our approach will combine hands-on species management with habitat restoration whilst also working alongside local communities and training conservationists.

"We will leverage our extensive international species reintroduction and land management experience to rebuild an intact piece of Scottish uplands where people can reconnect with our native biodiversity and immerse themselves in the land as it should be - a home for people and wildlife."

Pembrokeshire’s recently-arrived great-tailed grackle may have hitched ride on oil tanker from port in Texas

 

This oil tanker moored off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales may have brought with it the great-tailed grackle that is currently  proving a magnet for twitchers. The good ship, Antarctic, arrived here earlier in the week from the port of Corpus Christi in Texas where grackles - not known as long-distance migrants - are common visitors to bird feeders.

Unwelcome presence! Owl just has to grin and bear the frenzy as smaller birds move in to mob it

 

This oft-seen watercolour attributed to artist John Cyril Harrison (1898-1985) is included by auction house Tennants of Leyburn, Yorkshire in their sale of British, European and Sporting Art to be held on November 11. The blue, crested and coal tits are readily identifiable, but what about the raptor? Eagle owl or long-eared owl? the catalogue has it down as the former. The pre-sale estimate is that the work, which measures 33cm x 23cm, will fetch between £200 and £300.

Full-time warden sought by RSPB to oversee management of Insh Marshes nature reserve in Cairngorms

 

One of Britain's few breeding sites of spotted crakes

A FULL-time warden is being sought by the RSPB to manage two of its reserves in the Cairngorms.

Insh Marshes, near Kingussie, is said to be Britain’s largest floodplain mire.

In winter, it normally hosts numerous whooper swans and other wetland birds, with crested tits occasionally putting in an appearance in the perimeter woodlands. Hen harriers are also regularly seen.

In summer, the reserve attracts breeding waders, including spotted crakes, and songbirds such as wood warblers and redstarts. Visiting raptors include both eagle species and ospreys.

Insh Marshes - a world of boggy wonders 

Responsibilities of whoever lands the job will also also include supervising a small team of enthusiasts and oversight of the Ballinlaggan reserve, a smaller site, which is not generally publicised by the RSPB.

The post  carries a salary in the region of £28,331 to £30,415 per annum.

More details are available from the RSPB, and the deadline for applications is November 19, 2023.

The job description is below:

About the Role 

As one of the Wardens, you will be an essential part of a small team delivering the Insh Marshes and Ballinlaggan management plans, as well as supporting our ambitious Cairngorms Connect restoration programme for the river and floodplain. 

The main focus of the role is to take responsibility for implementing the reserve management plans, including habitat and grazing management, to deliver the ecological objectives on the wetland, woodland and grasslands.

In addition, you will undertake and oversee species and habitat survey and monitoring work on site, including annual monitoring of the breeding and wintering wader and wildfowl population and other RSPB priority species, such as Aspen Hoverfly, Dark Bordered Beauty Moth, Water Vole, and Beavers.

The role will also involve oversight trial grazing with an RSPB-owned and managed herd of Konik ponies. 

The post-holder will be jointly responsible for the management of the wardening team and volunteers (non-residential and residential) to ensure the delivery of work programmes. This includes ensuring that they are trained and appropriately equipped to work safely.

As Warden, you will ensure high standards of Health and Safety and legal compliance are maintained across the reserve, including the safe use and maintenance of the reserve machinery and equipment used to undertake reserve management.

Additional activities will include:

• Supervising contractors to carry out work on-site safely and legally to deliver the management plan targets. 
• Estate management and infrastructure maintenance.
• Ensuring good relations at all times with neighbours, graziers, external organisations and the general public to facilitate delivery of sites and RSPB's objectives. 
• Assist the Community Ranger and Community Learning Officer in delivering an annual events programme and supporting school and educational visits.

What we need from you?

We are looking for someone experienced in wetland management with strong ecological knowledge and good practical skills who can deliver to a high standard. You will be organised, resilient, and self-motivated, able to take on almost anything a day on the reserve can throw at you. The work programme at Insh Marshes can be complex and demanding. 

You must be a strong team player who collaborates closely with other members of the Insh Marshes Team. You'll have plenty of energy and a willingness to learn and develop as part of your role. 

The role will involve remote working, and you must enjoy working outdoors in all weather, as this is Scotland. 

Essential knowledge, skills and experience:

• Relevant ecological knowledge (floodplain wetland, mire and open water habitats and woodland /scrub)
• A full driving licence that is valid in the UK
• Agricultural or livestock knowledge where relevant
• Health & Safety applying to site management (e.g. risk assessments)
• Relevant knowledge of compliance requirements (eg agricultural and environmental legislation with particular reference to grazing livestock where relevant)
• Communication and interpersonal skills
• Individual and team management skills
• Estate management
• Organisational including time management and prioritisation
• Problem solving
• Proven track record of reserve or land management
• Biological monitoring
• Working with staff or volunteers

Desirable qualifications, knowledge, skills and experience 

• Machinery operations, equipment servicing
• IT and database (Merlin)

Additional information:

This role will involve lone working and working in remote locations. This role will also require occasional weekend, early morning and evening working so will need someone who is able to be flexible.

This is a Permanent Full-Time role for 37.5 hours per week. We are looking to conduct interviews for this position from 4th December 2023. For further information please contact karen.birkby@rspb.org.uk 

As part of this application process you will be asked to complete an application form including evidence on how you meet the skills, knowledge, and experience listed above.

We are committed to developing an inclusive and diverse RSPB, in which everyone feels supported, valued, and able to be their full selves. To achieve our vision of creating a world richer in nature, we need more people, and more diverse people, on nature’s side. People of colour and disabled people are currently underrepresented across the environment, climate, sustainability, and conservation sector. If you identify as a person of colour and/or disabled, we are particularly interested in receiving your application. Contact us to discuss any additional support you may need to complete your application.

This role is not eligible for UK Visa Sponsorship - the successful applicant will need to have a pre-existing Right to Work in the UK in order to be offered an employment contract.

The RSPB is an equal opportunities employer. This role is covered by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.       

Ospreys, hen harriers and eagles (of two species) are regularly to be seen

                             

'All hands will be on deck' in response to flooding says Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust

 

The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is this week counting the cost of Storm Babet. Along with many properties in Horncastle, Banovallum House, its head office in the town, was flooded. The Trust posted the photograph above on social media along with the following statement: "Unfortunately, on Friday night, our HQ at Banovallum House in Horncastle was flooded, meaning over the next few days all hands will be on deck sorting through the damage. Our phone lines will not be managed and Banovallum House will be closed during this time."

Birding in the Outer Hebrides - "it's not exactly a psychological compulsion, but it's not that far off"

 

Richly-textured - Bruce Kendrick's absorbing new book

A FEW days after he had give a talk to a ladies' group on the Hebridean island of Lewis, there was a surprise for birder Tony Marr.

Written in block capitals on the reverse of a note of thanks, was a message  assuring him that his hosts would pray for his soul for "having taken the name of the Lord in  vain".

How come? Apparently,  this was in reference to an aside he had made about the storm petrel being so named because, in its feeding habits, the species appears to imitate  St Peter after Jesus commanded him to come to him by walking on water.

This anecdote is recalled by Bruce Kendrick in his fascinating new book, Art and Nature in The Outer Hebrides, the contents of which are explained by the title.

On the arts (and crafts) side, there are interviews with the likes of painter Rhod Evans, poet Pauline Prior-Pitt, ceramic artist Kirsty O'Connor and fisherman-photographer Lewis MacKenzie.

Writes the author (somewhat pretentiously, it has to be said): "When we gaze at a painting or listen to music, we can understand ourselves better.

"I read somewhere that art in all its manifestations - music, painting, sculpture and literature - can be considered the repository for a society's collective memory. Makes sense to me."

On the nature side, the emphasis is on birds, with plentiful text and photographic information about such species as St Kilda wren, red-necked phalarope, fulmar, red-throated diver, puffin and more.

For those of his readers lucky enough to be birders, it is the interviews with the aforementioned Tony Marr, previously of Norfolk, and Bruce Chapman that are particularly captivating.

They read like a refreshing blast of air - cold in off the Atlantic!

Bruce Chapman, a regular contributor to the website, Rare Bird Alert, spent many years patch birding in inland Somerset but moved with wife Kathy to Barra because he wanted "a little more excitement" and this remote and picturesque island offered him "a broader canvas on which to work".

Kendrick quotes him  as saying:  "After 20 years flogging, my old patch had become a bit predictable. 

"I knew if I carried on I'd still find rarities, but I had a pretty good idea which species they would be and where and when they would occur. 

"Where's the fun in that? I felt I was somehow selling myself short.

"I never know what the day will bring, and the feeling there might be something truly incredible around the next corner is always there.

"I can take my birding to the next level, and I feel more driven by it than ever before.

"It's not exactly a psychological compulsion, but it's not that far off."

The relocation to this hotspot certainly paid dividends because it is on Barra that he has managed to track down such specialities as  Pechora pipit and night herons - both at a litter-strewn  ditch near the football pitch in Castlebay - plus,  on September 7, 2017, an American redstart, the sixth record in Britain and the first for 32 years.

But the real icing on the cake was surely his discovery, in November 2020, of  a ruby-crowned kinglet - the first for Britain. 

Art and Nature in The Outer Hebrides is published at £18.99 by go-ahead Caithness-based firm Whittles Publishing. (www.whittlespublishing.com)

The RSPB 'hums with zeal and fights for the things it believes in' insists Haweswater reserve manager

                     

Tough skin required - Lee Schofield's fascinating book 

THE RSPB is "an incredible organisation to work for".

So says Lee Schofield site manager for the society's Haweswater reserve in the Lake District. 

In his book, Wild Fell, he writes: "My colleagues are some of the most dedicated and passionate people I have ever had the privilege to meet.

"The shared zeal for saving species  and restoring habitats is palpable - the organisation hums with it, and our successes are many and varied.

"If it had not been for the campaigning and practical interventions by the RSPB, chances are that we would not have avocets, goldfinches, marsh harriers, bitterns or many other species in anything like the numbers we do today."

He continues: "Sure it doesn't get everything right all the time, no organisation does, but the RSPB fights for the things it believes in and rarely gives up."

Subtitled Fighting for Nature on a Lake District Hill Farm, the book provides a fascinating account of the efforts by Lee and his team to bring back birds and plants long lost to this patch of Cumbria.

But he makes enemies along the way - not least some upland sheep farmers who are fearful that the RSPB's approach may undermine practices they have pursued for generations.

In the aftermath of one of his presentations to a group of farmers, he took so much flak that he felt emotionally "bruised and shaken".

He recalls: "As I sat in the car outside, my wife, Becki, had to talk me down over the phone before I was in a fit state to drive home.

"I was starting to realise that, in order to survive in the job, I would need a thicker skin."

Later, the author describes how, after a promising first encounter, he and Rory Stewart, his MP at the time, fell out.

Miffed at how, in an article, the MP described him as dressing like a "canoe instructor", he hit back by referring to Eton-educated Rory Stewart's "clipped public school accent".

Schofield won't have done any favours to a hotel he stayed at while on a fact-finding visit to Scotland by likening it to the setting of BBC TV comedy series Fawlty Towers.

Happily, snippiness of this sort is rare and not what characterises the book which is full of fascinating insights about what works and what doesn't.

Credit to the author also for the depth of his research both into the history of Haweswater back to earliest times, when it was far more wooded, and into the example set in a not dissimilar habitat in Norway.   

There is a gentle, self-deprecating humour in much of the writing - for instance, in his account of bracken as "probably not on anyone's list of favourite plants - certainly not on mine".

He explains: "Walking through it in the summer, when it can grow to over two metres high, is a nightmare.

"The thick stem seems to grab at the ankles, tripping you with every step.

"It harbours ticks and a day of bracken-bashing necessitates a thorough check in case any of these tiny parasites have found their way into lesser explored bodily regions."   

Wild Fell is published in paperback at £10.99 by Penguin.

Sadness at death of John Love - champion of all things Hebridean, especially white-tailed eagles

                                             

John Love - much loved by all lucky enough to have known him (photo: David Sexton) 

A PIONEER of the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles in Scotland has died.

A popular figure in the birding world and throughout Scotland, especially in the Outer Hebrides, John A. Love died suddenly last Wednesday, October 18, at his cottage in Snishivale on the island of South Uist.

Born in Inverness and a graduate of Aberdeen University - his degree subject was Zoology -  John managed the Sea Eagle Reintroduction for the Nature Conservancy Council on the Isle of Rum from 1975 to 1985.   

Later, he worked as area officer (covering, Barra, the Uists and St Kilda) for Scottish Natural Heritage, 

After his retirement in 2006, he stayed busy both as a writer and as a lecturer, sometimes on cruise ships, with a focus on the Hebrides nd its birds, especially maritime species and eagles.

Among his entertaining and authoritative books, both published by Whittles Publishing have been A Saga of Sea Eagles and A Natural History of Lighthouses, both reviewed in earlier editions of this blog.

John was also an accomplished violinist.

His funeral will be held on Monday, November 6, at 12.30 pm in Chisholms’ Funeral Home, Huntly Street, Inverness.

                                           

One of John Love's excellent books 

                                            

Twenty-minute twitch: Chatsworth House estate, near Bakewell, Derbyshire

                    

Date: October, 19, 2023

Time: 12.20pm - 12.40pm 

Weather: Sunny intervals and showers, mild

Target species: Hen harrier

Star species: Buzzard

Other species seen:

Pied wagtail

Grey wagtail

Blue tit

Coal tit

Mallard

Canada goose

Carrion crow

Rook

Jackdaw

Pheasant

Black-headed gull

Tenacious green woodpecker is making its mark on wooden-clad church tower in Bedfordshire village

 Letter in The Daily Telegraph - October 19, 2023

15-minute twitch: Monsal Trail, near Bakewell, Derbyshire

 

Date: October 18, 2024

Time: 10.45am - 11.15am

Weather: Mostly sunny, mild

Target species: Great Spotted Woodpecker

Star species: Nuthatch 

Other species seen:

Robin

Wren

Blue tit

Great tit

Long-tailed tit

Coal tit

Starling

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Woodpigeon

Pheasant

Jackdaw

Rook

Black-headed gull

Buzzard

White-tailed eagles soaring in the skies over North Norfolk - perhaps in quest for breeding habitat?

                                                 

Norfolk ahoy!

THE sighting of no fewer than three white-tailed eagles over the Norfolk coast have prompted hopes that, before long,  the species could return to breed.

Because of Britain's largest raptor - with a 8ft wingspan - had become extinct, or close to it, by the mid-20th Century, but it is now on the increase after being re-introduce to islands off Scotland and, more recently, the Isle of Wight.

This month, two females and a male  have been 'prospecting' over the 25,000 Holkham estate in North Norfolk.

From satellite tags, the females are known to have been from Isle of Wight stock, with the male thought to be a wanderer from continental Europe.

With plentiful food in the freshwater marshes and an immense area of forest for roosting, much of Holkham provides ideal habitat.

A few years ago, there was plan by the Roy Dennis Foundation to reintroduce sea eagles to the Wild Ken Hill estate, also in North Norfolk, but this was scrapped in 2021 after farmers protested that their livestock, particularly piglets, might be at risk from predation.

However, research indicates that white-tailed eagles prefer natural food to farm livestock.

Thirty-minute twitch: Riverside, Bakewell, Derbyshire

                        

Date: October 17, 2023

Time: 4.45pm - 5.15pm 

Weather: Overcast with occasional sunny intervals, mild 

Target species: Kingfisher

Star species seen: Goosander

Other species recorded:

Canada goose

Mallard

Moorhen

Coot

Black-headed gull

Cormorant

Jackdaw

Woodpigeon

Dipper

Grey wagtail

Wren

Greenfinch

Blue tit

Long-tailed tit

                                    

                                                      

Welsh red kite lived to a ripe old age but time finally caught up with it 26 years after it was ringed as a nestling

                                                                         

Wild red kites seldom live longer than 10 years

OLD age is probably what has accounted for the demise of a red kite in Wales.

Because of its frail condition, the bird was put down - aged 26 which is almost three times the 10-year normal lifespan of this species in the wild.

The RSPCA was alerted when the kite, which was unable to fly,  was detected in a collapsed state  in Llanybydder, Carmarthenshire.

A ring on its leg dated it to June 20, 1997, at a nearby location, when it was still a nestling.

The BTO had no other record of this bird or its movements, but it now has a place in the record books as the  oldest known wild red kite in Britain and Ireland.

                                                      

The ring on the bird's leg revealed its age (photo: RSPCA)

 

‘White’ starling became a late-summer tourist attraction but now it may have perished

 

Surveying the scenery - the rare 'white' starling

                                                               

A RARE 'white' starling may now have perished - perhaps at the claws of a predator such as cat, fox or sparrowhawk.

For much of last month, the bird - thought to have arrived in Britain from Russia in the company of normal-plumaged starlings - proved something of a tourist attraction.

It was first seen on ploughed farmland at Tetney Lock, near Louth, in Lincolnshire, but, more recently, it was spotted feeding on sea buckthorn berries on the fringes of the saltmarsh four miles further north in the seaside resort of Cleethorpes.

It is not known if it ventured in into any gardens but it has been spied on rooftops on the seafront.

There are various theories for its pale plumage including one that it might have been caught in a shower of acid rain!

However, the most likely explanation is that it simply came out of the egg that way. 

RSPB apologises - again - for social media message in which it described Prime Minister and colleagues as 'liars'

       

Beccy Speight - difficult challenge to negotiate 

THE RSPB has repeated its apology for posting a social media message in which it described Prime Minister and two of his Cabinet colleagues as 'liars'.

At yesterday's AGM, chief executive Beccy Speight told members: "We don't always get things right - we are determined to learn lessons."

The RSPB was born out of the campaigning of bird protectionists, and Ms Speight said the organisation would continue down this route - subject to abiding by Charities Commission guidelines.

However, it will seek to stay out of party politics.

She continued: "As my inbox reflects, this is a difficult challenge to negotiate.

"Some members want us to be more strident while others want us nowhere near politics."

Despite the apology, the RSPB still has not deleted the 'liars' insult which was posted in August on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Up to 400 members logged on to all or some of the meeting which was chaired by society president Dr Amir Khan who lamented the long drive to the the RSPB's HQ in Sandy, Bedfordshire,  from his home in Yorkshire.

The event was tightly managed, but slightly awkward, consisting mostly of senior RSPB figures taking turns to read from prepared scripts at a podium. 

To break the procession, there were various short video clips - for instance, focusing on the work of volunteers and the satisfactions they derive.

There was no officer-member interaction, nor any answers to specific questions.

Members were able to submit comments to a discussion forum and a question-and-answer box, but both were subject to censorship. 

What we learned was that:

* Gannets are showing promising early signs of immunity from avian influenza.

*The RSPB will continue its campaign to exterminate vole-killing stoats in The Orkneys.

* An inquiry has been launched into why the society's costly campaign to eradicate the mouse population on Gough Island, in the South Atlantic, has failed, putting millions of seabirds at risk.

* For a trial period starting soon, 16-24-year-olds will have free access to RSPB reserves.

* The society will continue to support efforts to save tigers in Sumatra.

The meeting heard from treasurer Robert Cubbage that the society's income last year was £163.3-million compared with £121.3-million the previous year.

The Wryneck says: Sterile or what? The format of the meeting could scarcely have been more highly sanitised and bland. The AGM is held primarily for the benefit of members not for officers. Its purpose is to provide a once-a year opportunity for members to challenge the bosses,  to ask questions and  to hear them answered in a live forum. Instead, questions submitted to Saturday's event will  be considered in the fullness of time, with responses to some of them to be posted online - but not until next month and only for a temporary period. The feisty female founders of the society would  have been dismayed by such a wishy-washy arrangement, such a flat balloon of a meeting. The RSPB must do much better than this. In future years, it needs to bring back in-person attendance, with the option of online viewing for the benefit of those unable to attend.

Plan to plant 500 million native trees was thwarted - not by farmers but by environmental organisations

 

A FORMER Government minister has claimed his dream of of seeing 500 million native trees planted across Britain was shattered jointly by civil servants and by environmental organisations.

Rory Stewart who was Forestry Minister in David Cameron's administration makes the surprise revelation in his book, Politics on The Edge - A Memoir From Within. 

He writes: "I had great hopes of direct impact in my role as minister.

"The UK has only half the forest cover of most comparable European countries, and our forestry was dominated by sitka spruce, a tree originally from Alaska planted in dark straight edged blocks across upland Britain in a way which damaged precious peatland and supported very little in  way of wildlife

"I had long dreamed of planting 500 million native trees in Britain, from oaks to hawthorn, spread thinly and evenly across whole country, creating a more mixed traditional landscape.

"A single oak could host 1000 separate species. And I felt it would be beautiful."

Working through the details, he calculated that his scheme would result in 25 trees per hectare across the UK.

"A  young oak sapling could cost less than 20p, and a single person working steadily could plant over 1000 a day with a simple turns of a spade.

"Even with protective tubing and staking the total cost was about £1 a tree."

He continues: "Since we were  handing out over £3 billion a year in single farm subsidy payments to farmers, I suggested that the subsidy payments should be conditional on farmers planting five native trees for every hectare of their land every year for five years.

"They could choose any native tree - even birch or field maple or cherry or hazel or willow.

"They could group them in orchards or along stream banks or plant them as standard trees along hedges and fence lines

"The result would be half a billion extra trees at minimal cost

"And we would have created something of staggering beauty and environmental value."

What could possibly go wrong with such a notable aspiration? Stewart's small team of civil servants who specialised in trees was evidently unimpressed.

He states: "They suggested my idea was probably logistically impossible, or even illegal, and certainly unacceptable to the National Farmers' Union."

But to the minister's surprise, the strongest opposition came not from the NFU "which seemed reasonably relaxed "but from the environmental NGOs who told him they "would not trust farmers which trees to plant and where".

When he tried to argue that such micro management would make the entire project unaffordable, he says "they shrugged and refused countenance a compromise".

Any hopes that Stewart might have had of pursuing the project were "derailed", he says, when Cameron's decision to hold a  referendum on membership of the EU put a raft of across-Whitehall policies on the back burner.

* Politics on The Edge is published by Jonathan Cape.

Disappointment for these plough-following black-headed gulls - there was nothing on the plate

                                                               

In line with age-old custom, these black-headed gulls were following the plough on a field in Lincolnshire this week. But if they were hoping for a quick and easy meal, they were to be disappointed. Drenched in chemicals throughout the year, the soil of today no longer provides the abundance of worms that was the case in years gone by.

Up, up and away! RSPB awards chief executive Beccy Speight pay rise for job well done

 

Ms Speight - committed and energetic

THERE has been a pay rise for the RSPB's chief executive, Beccy Speight.

The charity's annual report reveals that her annual remuneration  package has risen to £195,445 compared with £189,473 the previous year.

The society's board of trustee has been impressed by her energy and commitment since she took the reins in August 2019.

Between them, Ms Speight and her other six directors received £788,373 last year compared with £690,869 the previous year.

A total of  38 of RSPB staff receive salaries of £60,000 per annum or more. This compares with 25 last year.

The directors are firm believers in openness and transparency.

The annual report further states: "We try to create a culture where RSPB supporters, staff, volunteers, institutional partners and the public can see and understand how we work, how we deal with issues, and how we spend our funds.

"We strive to keep you informed and involved about our projects and activities. 

"This means we operate in an open and transparent way within our legal and regulatory requirements. 

"We want to share information about how we work and ensure it can be accessed easily."

Of her own job at the top of the perch, Ms Speight says: "My role is to lead the organisation, build relationships with key partners, represent our views externally and work with the council and executive board to develop our forward direction and ensure we deliver that plan. 

"I believe I am in the best possible place to make a real difference for birds, the natural world and people in the context of the nature and climate crisis. 

"I feel fortunate to work with a great team of staff, volunteers, members and supporters to do just that."

The society is due to hold its AGM online this Saturday October 14.

Superlative study of swifts fetches double pre-sale estimate at at specialist sale in Yorkshire

 

This superb study of swifts by Raymond Booth (1929-2015) was one of the star lots at a sale held last Saturday by auction house Tennants  in Leyburn in North Yorkshire. The hammer came down at £1,200 - double the £600 highest pre-sale estimate. It is not known who bought the painting. There were also higher than expected prices for other works (below) by the same artist who spent almost all of his life in and around Leeds. 

                                               

Shelduck: hammer price £700

Goldeneye: hammer price £700

Cuckoo: hammer price  £650

Bramblings: hammer price £750

Woodcock: hammer price £950