Newbury, Berkshire RG14 6HL info@naturestimeline.com Always available, except when sleeping, or on a rare away day. I will attempt to respond to most emails within 24 hours.

Category: Uncategorized

Nature Blogging: Why Bother?

Tony3 Comments on Nature Blogging: Why Bother?

Another personal LinkedIn connection and another of those folk given the title of a Conservation “Young Gun” back end of last year. This post resonated with me, and I’m sure it will with many others. Why bother? Noting all that wildlife for what purpose? What good does it do in telling others about your passions as a conservationist, a blogger, a naturalist? If you enjoy what you do, then stick with your passions, life will become very boring for you the moment you give up on them. Stand Up for Nature! Over to you, James Common and Nature Blogging: Why Bother?

James Common

One of the most common questions raised whenever someone stumbles across this blog, particularly from those of a non-environmental background is: why bother? Surely it takes up too much time, provides very little in the way of a reward and is generally rather tedious. A good question actually, though one I struggle to answer on a regular basis, the issue broached equally as often by nature-lovers, many of whom appear baffled by the notion of writing about wildlife, as opposed to watching it in the field 24/7. Well, I do, in fact, spent a great deal of time watching wildlife. As well as writing about it. Though such conversations have indeed caused me to ponder, let’s say, just why I dedicate so much time to blogging about nature. And, for that matter, aspire to one day make a living from amalgamating words and wildlife.

zumwalt-prairie-writing-worksh

Nature blogging, for me, is a mode…

View original post 895 more words

Maintaining diversity in the countryside. Guest blog by Tony Powell

Tony3 Comments on Maintaining diversity in the countryside. Guest blog by Tony Powell

Courtesy of a fellow LinkedIn connection, Ben Eagle, I would like to highlight a recent guest post I made on his blog at thinkingcountry dot com
It’s entitled “Maintaining diversity in the countryside”.

Ben’s blog is well worth subscribing to, in my opinion, as he covers a great many topics relating to farming, wildlife and conservation matters. After all, he was also one of my original Conservation “Young Guns” to look out for in 2016.

thinkingcountry

Here is another guest post written in the light of Brexit (and in this case, the recent State of Nature report as well). Tony Powell is a wildlife surveyor (principally birds) and researcher and runs the naturestimeline website. He has previously volunteered for many organisations including the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, The Woodland Trust, the British Trust for Ornithology, The Wildlife Trusts, Butterfly Conservation and currently volunteers for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. In his article Tony reminds us how the farming community has a huge role to play in achieving positive conservation results in the countryside.

3038945_1d07df57

Partridge and Pheasant rear and release sites are very much part of the UK landscape. Collectively, these enterprises have planted tens of thousands of acres of woodland over many decades. Woodland, when managed in such a way, boosts the productivity of woodland ground-nesting bird species alongside that of the shoot. Often…

View original post 462 more words

Ongoing Research – slowly building up the knowledge base!

TonyLeave a Comment on Ongoing Research – slowly building up the knowledge base!

For those who might have missed this, I’ll reblog this article here. On my way to fulfilling my mission statement. “birding through the seasons, why birds matter and how to conserve them”.

UKbirdingtimeline

As of this afternoon, I have completed a first stage of many by documenting my scanned (poorly) handwritten notes for a personal research project I have in mind. An example from one of the 184 notes I have uploaded in recent days is shown below.

*be prepared for a geek moment

Doxie 0240 example - Yellow Wagtail 1 Doxie scanned example of handwritten notes – Yellow Wagtail 1

I have also tagged them within Evernote with various wordings for later referencing. For those of you who don’t know what Evernote is, it is a digital note-taking software package and is available with both offline and online versions. Below is an example screen grab of my current Evernote setup for the purposes of this Bird Research Project.

Evernote setup screen grab example - Yellow Wagtail 1 Evernote setup screen grab example – Yellow Wagtail 1

I may eventually try to find a way of incorporating this growing evidence base of notes of viable conservation measures onto 

View original post 194 more words

A Christmas Robin with a spring in its step, not least its voice! And just why might that be.

TonyLeave a Comment on A Christmas Robin with a spring in its step, not least its voice! And just why might that be.

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year from Tony Powell and UKbirdingtimeline.com

UKbirdingtimeline

Of late, I’ve heard song from Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Robins, Mistle Thrushes, Great Tits and Coal Tits and probably a couple more I haven’t mentioned. Why?

Perhaps this pre-Christmas Davis weather station graph might help guide you towards an answer.

 

 

Yes, the unseasonable Temperatures aren’t helping our bird’s natural processes of late, least not, nature in general is pretty confused. The minimum Temperatures as illustrated by the chart below don’t help things much either. You’ll note that I am yet to register a single Air Frost in December. Once again, the blue line (in this case, maroon) represents the approximate average conditions expected in any given year.

 

 

Now time for some Christmas cheer. Voted No.1 in David Lindo’s UK’s Favourite Bird survey, as promised, here is our Christmas Robin.

 

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year from Tony Powell and UKbirdingtimeline.com

 

 

Posted…

View original post 8 more words

From autumn to spring in December 1806

Tony2 Comments on From autumn to spring in December 1806

December 2015 is most definitely an odd one. With its weather statistics and Natural World tales, it is certainly becoming one for the history books. Although, it is worth noting that we have been here before, as this example from 1806 shows, courtesy of the wonderful Wanstead Meteo blog. Of course, my current mean Temperatures of 5.4c above average could and perhaps should still be viewed as rather concerning.

Wanstead Meteo

When I was writing up my winter forecast I came across an analogue that was very similar to what seems to be unfolding this December.

The River Lea close to where Luke Howard's laboratory stood by wanstead_meteo The River Lea close to where Luke Howard’s laboratory stood

Luke Howard, in his first volume of The Climate of London, describes a very warm December that followed on from a warm November that fooled flora and fauna into thinking spring had begun early.

Howard’s statistics are very high: a November mean of 9.5C while December was 9.3C. CET that November was 2.3C above average while December was 3.3C above average. A slightly wetter than average was followed by a very wet December – over 250% the monthly average caused the River Lea to burst its banks in several places

“The catkins of the filberts expanded prematurely. On December 25th a hedge sparrow’s nest was taken at Doveridge, Derbyshire, with four eggs and…

View original post 315 more words

%d bloggers like this: