Alick Simmons

UK Government confirms ban on sale & use of toxic lead ammunition for ‘live quarry shooting’ from 1st April 2029 Following the announcement from Defra in July 2025 that the Government aimed to introduce legislation by the summer of 2026 to ban the sale and use of toxic lead ammunition for ‘live quarry s…

UK Government confirms ban on sale and use of toxic lead ammunition for live quarry shooting from 1st April 2029.

Good news for the environment & wildlife (especially raptors!)

New blog ⬇️

#RaptorResearch

raptorpersecutionuk.org/2026/03/05/u...

Let's hope the trend continues.

Still there.

PEACOCK on my allotment.

It's quite simple, dentists are greedy.

The trailers are enough to form a view.

I can’t make up my mind whether you are referring to the Trump administration or the cast of Love Island. Probably, it’s both.

"We called London a war zone and moved to Dubai by mistake"

Lovely. What an achievement.

Them frogs is toads.

Likewise along with 3 Early Greys, 1 Common Quaker and an Early Thorn.

But when over half of all the land in Great Britain is given over to grazing animals, that is the norm! Along with Ireland, GB is the most overgrazed country in Europe but one county, Lincolnshire, produces 10% of GB's food - and very little of that comes from grazing animals.

A special category devised by the IUCN so that GB avoided being squeezed out of the club.

That might unblock the veto.

Farmland will never be the answer to the crisis of diversity and abundance. There are too many variables and too much influence of the market. If nature is to recover in GB we need more, bigger and better national parks - owned and run by the public.

I agree. Chilling and disturbing.

How about ‘useful idiots enabling rapacious capitalism’?

Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain, Zia Yusuf to say Nigel Farage’s party plans to deport up to 288,000 people a year on five flights a day and expand stop and search

If you want concentration camps in the UK, people being grabbed off the streets, or murdered on them, five year olds being separated from their parents and locked up #VoteReform

You can't be too careful. Surely you've read 'The Day of the Triffids'?

A group of Cattle Egrets loafing on the edge of a flooded pasture. The Guardian has captioned the birds as ‘herons’.

Or what we in the trade know as Cattle Egrets. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Indeed. The prospects of it happening in the UK are vanishingly small, I fear. I’m sure they would manage. The biggest hurdle is creeping zoophobia.

Interesting. I wonder whether there is a difference in effect between a reintroduction and a slow re-colonisation. One would have thought the former would be dramatic but it would depend on the numbers involved.

Perhaps not, but I think it’s the best we have.

I don’t know. The Yellowstone wolf introduction has been claimed to show a huge drop in elk (Cervus elaphus) numbers and a profound change in their behaviour.

They haven’t shot them all. Yet. Fresh badger diggings in south Somerset, this morning. #bagders @protectthewild.bsky.social @badgertrust.bsky.social

It isn’t just the immediate reduction in numbers that is important, although that clearly is. Additionally, predators change prey behaviour and they reduce recruitment to the adult population.

An Arctic Tern mobs an American Herring Gull.

American Herring Gull and Arctic Tern, Churchill, Manitoba, July 2017. #SuperSeabirdSunday

Please use alt text in images.

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3> It enables people to mute image-related content.
4> It reduces the frequency of scolding in replies.

An important reminder