Our latest family adventure, during the Whit half term, was to Pembrokeshire, in the far west of Wales. Broadly speaking, Pembrokeshire is a big farm with a lovely coastline and a few towns and nature reserves dotted around. The coastal path is well maintained, but the inland paths that we visited were not, for the […]
Here’s a tool by Avaaz to help you decide who to vote for to stop the Conservative Party gaining (more) power: Avaaz – vote smart. Mark Avery’s blog post on the disregard for the environment in the Conservative Party manifesto is worth a read: http://markavery.info/2017/05/19/conservative-party-manifesto/.
Recently, there have been a load of bumblebees buzzing around outside a crevice in the wall of one the university building. Here’s a snapshot of some of them. Several bees were flying round in circles outside the nest, while other bees flew in and out, seemingly oblivious to those loitering outside. Eventually, with the help […]
This weekend we visited Marston Vale Country Park, as we often do, for I’s birthday. There wasn’t much to see… perhaps because of our binoculars skills. It got me thinking about the abundance of wildlife I see at the OU. The River Ouzel flows through the university (it’s a tributary of the Great Ouse), and birds […]
Today we went searching for bitterns. We persuaded the girls to go along with this by telling them about the booming noise that bitterns make during mating season – booming bitterns. J understood this as blooming bitterns. Our first stop was Foxcote reservoir near Buckingham. No luck there – it was far too misty. However, […]
Eating fish is rather fashionable these days. I don’t fully understand why this is so, but it’s probably largely due to the well-known nutritional benefits of fish (omega-3 fatty acids and so on). What you should remember when consuming fish, though, is that you are eating a wild animal (or a farmed animal fed on […]
I’ve recently been reading This changes everything by Naomi Klein. Early on the author refers to a statement by the weapons manufacturer Raytheon, which caught my attention. Expanded business opportunities are likely to arise as consumer behaviour and needs change in response to climate change. These opportunities include demand for its [Raytheon’s] military products and […]
I’ve just read The first 20 minutes by Gretchen Reynolds. It’s a tour of the latest research into the science of exercise, which has advanced significantly over the past ten to twenty years. The author is a journalist, and it’s written in a popular style. There is no reference list, unfortunately. I zipped through it […]
Recently a friend lent me GUT – the inside story of our body’s most under-rated organ by Giulia Enders. It’s rather good. The hook is that it’s a light-hearted tale of the gut, bacteria, and excrement, written by a young and fresh PhD student whose photo occupies much of the front cover. Her prose – […]
On Sunday we took a trip to the RSPB reserve in Sandy (it’s the location of the headquarters of the RSPB). As I collected a ticket for the car (free, as we’re members) a guy in the car next to me complained about the £5 fee because there was nothing to see. Nothing to see! […]