Green Woodpeckers And Wild Rabbits

I've never been a city boy. I grew up first in a small town called Snodland surrounded by lakes and, at the time, disused quarries that were teeming with life. I then moved to the village of Sellindge, living away from the main road near a large but secluded pond full of spawning toads and an imposing sentinel-like heron. I spent my teenage years in the larger town of Folkestone where the closest to wildlife one got was some seagulls and ducks, followed by a spell in Greenwich and then Folkestone again.

Nothing prepared me for the last year though. My love of nature from my early days had never left me but I'd been starved of contact with anything more than some urban foxes (gorgeous and beguiling though they were!). The fauna I've encountered in the first few months of living in Eastry rival all the British wildlife I'd seen before put together. We've a rabbit warren on one side of our drive. Pheasants, hares and very rarely seen partridges live in the large orchards behind our house. I've seen little egrets, ring-necked parakeets, a swarm of bees, flocks of house martins swooping low over the fields (and into the rafters of our home when escaping our cat and dog's eager eyes!) and last summer there was a common lizard burrow just across the road from the end of our lane (plus a toad that lived in our shed!). I'm in paradise.  

But there is a new love in my life... the green woodpecker. They spend almost all their time just out of eye sight in the orchards, but their unmistakable laugh echoes through the apple trees constantly. Occasionally one or two will alight upon the apple tree's support poles or our fence and their gorgeous green colours shine like some tropical bird. And, very rarely, I'll look down on the grass by our driveway and see one, two, sometimes three of them foraging through the ant hills (of which there seems no limit here!). They are extremely welcome and delightful birds which I've never had the pleasure to see before let alone be neighbours with.

When our new cat, a Maine Coon called Jeff, killed one and left its carcass on our patio I felt real pain unlike that when he kills a rat or a rabbit.

One day we will need to leave this place. But my heart will never leave this land of natural beauty.

BP Oil Slick: I Have No Words

I've not seen any video quite as disturbing as this, outside the context of war. 

More coverage can be found here

Warning: Extinction Event In Progress

Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. Source

Whilst I think the time frame might be a little too pessimistic (I believe humans are numerous enough and inventive enough to keep going a little bit more than another 100 years, which might not be such a good thing for planet Earth but there you go), I think Frank Fenner is bang on in pointing out the obvious; we are in the middle of an extinction event of our own making.

We continue to have children when we are constantly involved in making their lives even harder through our consumption rates. It's illogical and simple logic dictates it can't go on. Species are dying out constantly thanks to our need to exploit our world, and we shall reap the costs of that upon on our descendants.

Sadly few seem to understand this and, I suspect, even fewer care. They don't care about their children's future and they don't care about our planet's near future (I have no doubt once we are gone, the planet will "quickly" (in geological terms) repopulate itself). Alas.

Nature Facts For The Lazy Journalist

A Coati Is Not A Sort Of Brazilian Aardvark

Coati's are known as Brazilian aardvarks. This does not mean they are a type of aardvark that lives in Brazil. I know, it's complicated but think of it as an inappropriate nickname if that makes it easier for you. (this one is mainly aimed at the staff *cough* of the Metro). Aardvark's come from Africa and are extremely interesting animals as no one can quite decide what they evolved from...

Dolphin's Are Not Fish

Nope. Dolphin's are, like us, mammals. But they look like fish?! I hear you screech. Yes, but bats can be mistaken for birds, so it's easy to get confused sometimes. Pardon? No, bats aren't birds! They are mammals too! Yes I know they can fly. But they don't have feathers, just like dolphins don't have gills. (this one is aimed at everyone)

And on a related note, Killer Whales (or as I prefer Orca's) are NOT actually whales. But they do kill whales. Orcas are, in fact, dolphins. (this one is mainly aimed at the BBC who keep referring to news stories about Orcas as "Whales...." Wrong.)

Chimpanzees Are Not Monkeys

This is difficult one. Are you a monkey? No. Well neither is a chimpanzee. Is this a simple enough explanation? Chimpanzees are apes, more closely related to us than to monkeys. They, like all us apes, are rather intelligent creatures and deserve a lot more credit than you are giving them. Not that there's anything wrong with a monkey.

More to follow on this one, but don't want to overload those tiny little brains just yet...

Fantastic Mr Fox

We have no real megafauna left alive on these beautiful islands of ours, and thus we must take whatever small pleasures we can from the remaining wildlife. Foxes provide some of the most amazing nature experiences one can have in this country.

My first encounter with a fox was when I was very young, walking with an uncle towards the River Medway for some fishing we rounded a bend in some long grass we were walking through and there was a vixen. Beautifully orangey coloured, and alert, she was gone in just a second but it thrilled me no end. From then on I savoured every glimpse of these amazing animals I was afforded. Their beauty, stealth and obvious intelligence were things to appreciate, respect and cherish. I'm glad to have grown up in a town surrounded by lakes and the Downs, because I was brought up to understand that you don't get too close to wild animals, for the benefit of them and you (a lesson well learnt when my young uncle thought it'd be funny to put three adders in the bath, I knew not to go anywhere near them even at 3/4 years old).

Sadly it's seems nature is now not something to embrace, but to fear in this modern world. Only on Saturday I wrote about yet more anti-gull nonsense here in my adopted home town of Folkestone. But the nation's media are currently in the middle of a moral panic... over foxes. On Saturday a child was, regrettably, bitten by a fox after he pulled it's tail in Brighton. A few weeks ago two babies were "attacked" in their home and seriously injured by another fox.

These cases are saddening, but not indicative of a greatly increased risk of fox attacks. Foxes are wild animals. Wild animals are unpredictable, defensive and opportunists. They are not evil or menacing. This is why humans need to make sensible decisions to secure their property and learn about the natural world around them (even in urban spaces, just because you build a bunch of houses in one place, it doesn't mean nature will just suddenly give up and go away). Urban foxes are a problem created by ourselves. If you read my comments on the seagull "problem" in the article I linked to above, the solutions proposed there in are just as applicable to any other urban pest. Don't blame the foxes for making good use of the rubbish we provide them.

And the media needs to get some perspective. They will report seagull attacks on just about any scale ("seagull dive bombs postman") and will demonise foxes on just about any matter (the insistence of rural communties that foxes are evil because they "kill more chickens than necessary" seems to ascribe to the fox more intelligence even than us humans who like to kill way more marine life than needed to get our fish. Solution, TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOUR CHICKENS). Here's the thing; people seem to appreciate our wild life but can't quite deal with fact that it is WILD. Red in tooth and claw.

The media seems reluctant to report on dog attacks unless they involve serious injury to a child. In reality domestic dog attack statistics dwarf wild animal attacks in this country. Is that something to be concerned about? Yes. Is the solution a cull of domestic dogs? No. As with wild animals it's all about increased education. That's the real solution, if not the easy one. I just wish the general public, the media and farmers would get a perspective on things. I know, shockingly, farmers (and as I recently found, fisherman) are actually not all-knowing sages when it comes to rural matters. The recent story about the cancelling of a project to introduce sea eagles to East Anglia serves to show this quite clearly. The farmers were against the idea because they might scare their pigs. True story.

It's time the media took responsibility for it's reporting of our natural environment, otherwise we might just destroy it rather than learn to live with it.

The Gulf Oil Spill In Links

Why Oil-Laden Prey Is Bad For Sea Birds - Good study on detrimental affect of oil laden diet on sea gulls.

Wildlife and Gulf Oil Disaster Flickr Slideshow

How Do Oil Spills Affect Marine Life?

Gulf oil spill threatens turtle protection efforts

President Barack Obama and BP chiefs to discuss spill

Subsurface Oil from Deepwater Horizon Spill in Gulf of Mexico, Say Researchers

SeaWorld Aquatic Circus

Let us remember... keeping animals just for entertainment purposes is cruel.

If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist

Royal Bank Of Scotland: Not In Our Name!

Seems the Royal Bank of Scotland has not only been squandering taxpayer money on bonuses. They've also been using it on destroying the environment!

It's time we took over the banks and break them up!

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

After Sea Shepherd's "Ady Gil" disappeared beneath the waves following a collision with a Japanese whaler, one might think that environmentalists at sea had been delivered a decisive blow. Alas, for the nasty old whalers and other defilers of the ocean, there is more where that came from on the way.

Greenpeace has broken with tradition and commissioned a totally brand new ship to take over from it's flagship Rainbow Warrior II.

German and Polish shipyards will shortly start work on Greenpeace's £14m flagship, a mega-yacht that will become the third Rainbow Warrior next year. It will be one of the biggest yachts to have been commissioned in the last decade with, say the designers, a massive 1,300 sq metres of sail supported on two A-frame masts.

Back at Sea Shepherd a new ship, the Bob Barker, has already been launched to defend the whales (ironically it's a former whaling ship), and moves are afoot to raise more money for a bigger and better ship which will hopefully now replace the Ady Gil.

And another environmental ocean going group, Oceana, has plans to lease a third ocean going vessel.

All in all it's a bad day for illegal fishing, whaling and other assorted environmental crimes.

Their Last Chance Of Survival Is Our Last Chance Of Redemption

In our post Cold War world it is often difficult to imagine ways of life outside our own Western capitalist structure. Whilst many will point to cultural differences the world over, it is hard to find any modern nation which does not conform to our way of life to a greater or lesser extent (North Korea, I'll admit is one of the aberrations).

But there are still a few places on this planet whose exposure to our lifestyles is limited or, in some cases, non-existent. They still continue the traditions of their    (and our!) ancestors in tribal societies. You may think you've seen them on television, those plume feathered covered aborigines of various countries. But they are often tourist/television friendly versions of their uncontacted and isolated cousins.

Uncontacted tribe photographed on Brazil-Peru border

Our culture has destroyed, over the last few hundreds years, thousands of such societies through "missionary" work, spreading our diseases, and through plain and simple slaughter. And it is this slaughter that is still ongoing.

In the Americas, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea commercial interests on both corporate and individual not only threaten the places these tribes live but also their very lives as loggers, miners and farmers massacre tribes with near impunity.

We in the Western world have blood on our hands. We began this process many years ago and it's time we stood up and said "No more". It is time we accepted that, whilst it is too idealistic, and perhaps morally suspect, to isolate these tribal societies clinically and completely, we have a duty to protect them from others and allow them the freedom to choose whether they wish to participate in the modern world or live by their own ways. We owe it to them and we owe it to our collective conscience.

I'm planning on sending out some letters this coming week to various countries, as suggested by Survival International. Take a look at their website and see what you could do to help these people.

This blogger works for nothing but the joy of writing but always appreciates things bought from his wishlist

Spirit Of The Vaquita

The vaquita is a small cetacean, native to the coast of Mexico and it's not likely to last much longer. I'm a big fan of out with the old, but not when the cause of the destruction of a species is all because of man's selfishness.

I hope that there is something that can be done to save these cartoonishly cute creatures before they are consigned to the evolutionary dustbin.

We can't make these world into a museum by conserving every species but we could at least give it a go and see what happens!

Sabretooth Revelation... not...

BBC News and National Geographic are all over the news sabretooths killed by cutting into a creatures throat rather than through asphyxiation, like lions.

Jesus Christ... talk about old news. Even the BBC's own Walking With Beasts told us this. As always journalists blowing a rather dull study into something interesting.

No Fishing Zones Needed To Save Britains Fish

Scary, but true.

Weird Arsed Problem Solving

Prices of homes in this country are still rising and are now pretty much unaffordable to anyone who was born after 1980. Government solution: build more homes, take away more countryside and make everyone live in crappy crowded places. Oh and open the doors to everybody else in the world who wants to come here, especially rich Russians fleeing Putin who will happily raise house prices in London just that little bit more.

What is this all about??? The worlds population is getting huge and yet no one seems to dare say "Hey, why not encourage people NOT to have kids?".

House prices high? Be less of a problem if there weren't so many new buyers. People would have to sell property at reasonable prices (Heaven forbid the greedy bastards might lost some money!)

Got a problem with badly brought up children? Wouldn't have so much of a problem if there was less of them.

High prison population? Well we can ensure it's reduced in future!

Unemployment? Ditto.

Large class sizes. This is EASY!

Pension crisis due to lower reproduction? Well we are going to eventually get to the point where we can't have any more people living on the island if we constantly need MORE young people so we may as well face the problem now and sort it out rather than leave it to another generation to solve.

Imagine a country with less people. Imagine getting a train and being able to sit down. How pleasant would that be? Imagine affordable houses. Imagine no ugly new builds. Imagine children who've been brought up with all the necessary attention at school and home because there aren't so many of them. Imagine a country in which we could actually LIVE!

Introducing Alien Species Is Dangerous - Shocker

What should have been rather obvious in the first place is spelled out quite clearly in the Scientific America. Introducing foreign species to a new environment has a very well researched history of failure and of unintended consequences.

However I do believe the USA is in a unique position to offer threatened African species safe havens.... large reserves, perhaps on disused farmland, which are carefully monitored. Things in Africa are probably only going to get worse as Africa awakens and starts to expand it's economic muscle. This will not be a good thing for the megafauna. The African Governments might even pay for it with the hope of reintroducing the creatures once human expansion has been completed... they are after all a huge tourist boost.

Red List Published: More Bad News

The latest Red List has been published showing only 1 species situation has improved... and all the rest got worse. :(

In pictures

Don't Eat Bushmeat!

It can kill

A World Without Humans

Imagine for second that humans simply ceased to exist. One day we all just disappeared. What would happen to the world once we were gone?

I've been watching a really interesting show called The Future Is Wild which is a rather pointless, but fun, exercise in evolutionary futurology. I'm always upset that so many creatures in the past died out before I got here to see them. Now I'm annoyed of the possibility of just as fabulous creatures in the future who I'm going to miss out on (for a very obvious reason!).

Thinking about a life after humanity I started reading up on the possible causes of our demise.... and that's how I found the VHEMT, The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

Although I think their dream of a designed demise of humankind is highly unlikely (humans are bloody annoyingly unpredictable and stubborn) I do agree with the idea of less people. And no I'm not into extermination either. But a lower birth rate might make this world a more pleasant place to live less people PLUS environmental concern would make this world a fun place again.

Sadly humans tend to like their boring, safe world. Hopefully one day nature will rise up and bite us on the arse. Then we'll all have to get back to living again.

Carbon Off Setting

I saw this article on the Guardian site and found it fairly interesting.

Climate Care are featured in the article but there are other carbon offsetters...

co2balance

pure trust

equiclimate

Gorillas Freed From Rebel Territory?

Earlier this week Congo rebels had taken over a park containing half the total population of rare mountain gorillas. It looks like the territory has now been recovered; hopefully the Gorillas have not been harmed.

When I say half the population that is about 350 members of the species. 700 left in total. Such a sad, sad thing. Makes me sad to be human sometimes.