What am I supposed to do with it? Levelling-up Secretary Michael Gove looks slightly bemused as he is presented with a swift nestbrick by Hannah Bourne-Taylor who is campaigning for these to become mandatory in new housebuilding projects. With the duo is Lord Goldsmith who is backing her initiative.Their subsequent conversation was fruitful, and a further meeting between Ms Bourne-Taylor, who is an author, and the minister is on the cards.
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| Charlie Jacoby: 'We will continue to shine a light' |
A DEFIANT note has been sounded by Fieldsports Channel TV after its bruising legal encounter with celebrity wildlife broadcaster Chris Packham.
"Chris hasn't killed us," says lead presenter Charlie Jacoby. "He has not ended Fieldsports Channel which is marvellous.
"We will continue to shine a light where Chris does not want us to share a light."
During a 15-minute hearing in the High Court on Monday, Fieldsports Channel decided not to contest a defamation action brought against it by the BBC Springwatch presenter.
But Mr Jacoby revealed afterwards that it had agreed to pay £30,000 in damages - £10,000 now, £10,000 in January and £10,000 in April.
Its legal costs - put at £70,000 - have been paid by subscribers to the channel which broadcasts via the YouTube platform.
It has also published a retraction and an apology on its website.
According to Fieldsports' estimate, Mr Packham's various litigation actions during the year have cost him about £150,000.
However, he, too, has been the beneficiary of substantial financial support from his allies.
The BBC man's legal representative, Carol Day, told the court: "Given the public apology and the other steps undertaken by the defendants, the claimant is content to let the matter rest."
After the hearing, Mr Jacoby expressed the hope that, in future, Mr Packham would desist from labelling his critics - some of them field sports enthusiasts such as shooters and anglers - "psychopaths" and "hate terrorists".
* The full statement made in open court can be read on the Fieldsports Channel website at:
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| Sunlight through the trees on an autumn day at former theme park - but is there light at end of tunnel for developers? |
THERE has been a fresh setback to a longstanding scheme to redevelop the site of a former theme park on the Lincolnshire Coast.
A consortium led by supermarket chain Lidl wants to clear Pleasure Island, including almost all the trees and shrubs, to make way for a discount supermarket, 272 holiday 'lodges', a games arcade and, eventually, two hotels.
The project would change the face of this part of Cleethorpes and give a boost to the economy of this part of the seaside town.
But the Government body, Natural England, has this week again warned that it "may need to oppose the application".
This is because the consortium's agents have so far been unable to provide evidence that their client has either the will or the capacity to safeguard the birds and other wildlife - both on the site and on the neighbouring shoreline which is a designated Special Protection Area.
It is insisting that much more ecological survey work is required - work that will be expensive and take months, if not years, to complete.
Even then, there is no guarantee that it will meet Natural England's stipulations.
Specific NE concerns include:
* Noise disturbance
* After dark light spill
* Air contamination from dust during construction and road traffic during operation
* Holidaymakers spilling on to sensitive shoreline habitat to partake of watersports activities
* Provision of a suitably qualified wildlife ranger/warden and staff
Natural England is not convinced either that the consortium's proposed policy of banning dogs will be steadfast.
It is seeking assurances both on "how this would be secured and on the enforceability of it for the lifespan of the development".
There is also another abiding headache for the consortium.
Despite talks, there is no indication yet that the Environment Agency has withdrawn its longstanding objection over potential flood risk - either from a coastal surge or overtopping of the Buck Beck in the event of extreme rainfall.
Only one extract in anthology has a black author
AUTHOR and journalist Patrick Barkham has expressed disappointment that so few nature-focused books have been written by black, Asian or ethnic minority authors.
He says: "Until now, British and Irish nature writing has been almost exclusively white.
"As recently as 2020, I knew of only two published books of what would widely be considered nature writing by writers of a black, Asian or ethnic minority background.
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| Patrick Barkham - 'whiteness is stark' |
"The whiteness of British and Irish nature writing is stark.
"It is shared by the whiteness of professional conservationists with studies showing conservation to be one of the whitest industry in the country."
Patrick Barkham, whose work is regularly published in The Guardian newspaper, makes the observation in his introduction to an excellent anthology of nature writing - The Wild Isles.
One of the black-authored extracts he has chosen comes from The Grassling, a memoir by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett which, he says, "fizzes with joy, poetry and originality".
Does it matter whether authors are white or black?
Barkham answers the inevitable question thus: "Some readers might wonder what barn owls or stag beetles care about the colour of the skin of the person writing about them?
"Creatively, why is it relevant?"
To this, he answers: "If British and Irish nature writing is to grow and endure, to survive the whims of fashion, publishing and parody, it must be diverse, complex, multi-faceted and dynamic - and relevant to everyone who lives on this land."
On the plus side, he says "belatedly the sector is taking steps to change the situation".
The Wild Isles is published by Head of Zeus.
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| Legal action success for TV naturalist Chris Packham |
"IF anyone publishes or perpetuates lies about me or my conduct I will challenge them and I will win."
Thus spoke celebrity naturalist Chris Packham today after winning a defamation success he had brought against TV production company Fieldsports Channel Ltd and one of its presenters.
He had been wrongly accused of writing a fake death threat to himself.
As a result, the company will now have to pay an unspecified amount of damages to the broadcaster and contribute to his legal costs.
The BBC Springwatch presenter's solicitors, Leigh Day, say its client had been the subject of "an egregious slur against his reputation based on the flimsiest of evidence that failed to stand up to even the most basic form of scrutiny".
A post-hearing statement is still awaited from the TV company, but it is understood that, under the terms of the settlement, it will also have to issue an apology and a pledge not to repeat the defamation.
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| Amy Liptrot - lure of The Orkneys (and corncrakes) |
"There's no one around, and I took all my clothes off and ran around the Neolithic stone circle."
Amy's account comes in her book, The Outrun (Canongate Books), which won critical acclaim (and the Wainwright Prize) when it was published in 2016.
She compiled it while she was working for the RSPB at the same time as she was recovering from an alcohol addiction that stemmed from her club-going lifestyle while living in London.
In the Orkneys, where she grew up, her nightlife could not have been more different from that in the bright lights of the city.
It involved surveying every one-kilometre map grid reference square containing suitable corncrake habitat - hay and silage fields and areas of tall vegetation such as nettles or iris.
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| The Brodgar stone circle on mainland Orkney- setting for exuberance |
"Somehow this bird became my thing," she writes. "I changed the ringtone on my phone to a corncrake call.
"Their well-documented decline is undoubtedly down to human activity so it seems right that we should take responsibility to conserve the last few."
The author, who now lives in West Yorkshire with her partner and two sons, admits that, at times, she craved a bottle of wine and is grateful that Orkney has no 24-hour off-licences. She had to make do with a flask of coffee.
Amy also researched the species, noting with dismay that only 30 per cent of the birds that overwintered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo returned to their vanishingly scarce breeding haunts in Britain, some of them trapped and killed in hunters' nets in North Africa.
During her seven week as a surveyor, Amy also delighted in the company of curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers and short-eared owls - known locally as 'catty-faces'.
She counted a total of 32 calling male corncrakes - one more than had been logged the previous year.
Corncrakes are notoriously hard to see, so did she ever strike lucky?
She writes: "Then, one night, just when I finished my survey, I pulled slowly away in the car and something unexpected happened.
"It's just a moment but it's in the road right in front of me, a corncrake, running into the grass verge.
"Its image, the pink beak and ginger wing, keep darting through my mind - just a second that confirmed the existence I'd spent months searching for.
"My first and only corncrake!
"Usually dawn comes slowly but, tonight, I drive out of a cloud and suddenly it's a new day."
Magical!
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| Amy Liptrot's prize-winning book |
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| The bird shown is Say's pheobe (Sayornis saya) named after Thomas Say |
The committee adds: "The AOS commits to actively involving the public in the process of selecting new English bird names."
There is no indication that the AOS has consulted with any other bird societies either in the U.S. and Canada or in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world.
At a stroke, it will create muddle. Bird species field guides will become out of date.
One notable casualty of the shake up will be the Paisley-born Scot, Alexander Wilson, after whom species such as Wilson's phalarope, Wilson's storm petrel, Wilson's plover, Wilson's snipe and Wilson' warbler are named.
One of the first names likely to be dropped is Audubon's shearwater because members of John James Audubon's family are known to have kept slaves.
Says AOS president Colleen Handel (pictured below): "There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that are exclusionary and harmful."
Agreement comes from the society's chief executive, Judith Scarl, who says: "There has been historic bias in how birds are named, and who might have a bird named in their honour.
"Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don’t work for us today, and the time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds where it belongs.
"I am proud to be part of this new vision and am excited to work in partnership with a broad array of experts and bird lovers in creating an inclusive naming structure."
The society has form when it comes to name changes.
