Category: General

  • Evolution at Easter: science or spiritual?

    Just contemplating Easter and all that new life stuff and finding peace and existential satisfaction from the ecological and evolutionary processes inherent in the new anemones, bluebells and sorrel peeping through in the woods, the newts and frogspawn in Nower Woods ponds and the Red Kite in Pirbright village. But is that satisfaction scientific and…

  • Water Vole: Wishes and Woes at Wisley

    I was really hoping that I’d see signs of water vole on Wisley Common this morning. When one of the rangers sent me these pictures last week I was optomistic that we might be on to find evidence of these endangered mammals in Surrey  for the first time in three years. We just don’t have any extant records in…

  • Back to Basics

    I spend every day of my life working as a conservation professional. I am one of the lucky few to have secured a full time position working for a conservation NGO. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be doing a job that I love, and like many of my colleagues I find it impossible to…

  • The State of Conservation

    Do you have an opinion on the role of conservation in the UK? As a conservation professional are we restoring our natural habitats to a uniified functional ecological system or are we just gardening/farming on a massive scale? If you’re not a professional, does it matter to you? What do you want from “nature”, bearing…

  • Through the Canopy, artwork by Kiri Jones

    I’m embarrassed by the shoddy quality of these photos taken on my mobile at Kiri’s open studio in Streatham, London this weekend but I had to share the excellent work my awesome talented sister is producing at the moment, even more amazing she finds the time as a fulltime mother of two young’uns. If you…