Reece

I thought badgers tend to do it in a little pit near the sett? This is on the top of a hill (some heather, with a lot of rowan trees and bracken) and I don't know of any nearby sett.

Just been out for a walk today and found this. I'm posting it here because it seems a bit unusual. The shape of it looks (to my untrained eye) like something a carnivore would leave, but it seems to be mostly (if not entirely) made up of berries and seeds. Carnivore or not, it looks unusual and I don't know what animal could have left it. The grass is pretty short and should give a rough idea of scale. Does anyone have any ideas?

Here's another one of the videos.

I managed to upload one of the videos to youtube. All the videos were taken in full HD but unfortunately when I upload them it uploads a lower quality one for some reason. Good enough for now though. EDIT: HD seems to have sorted itself out after just leaving it for a while. Press play and click the settings icon along the bottom (looks like a cog) and select a higher quality. Might try to get some more uploaded tomorrow.

This morning I went to some woodland near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales to try and see the red squirrels there, as I had never seen one in real life before. I had to walk for a few kilometres to get to the woodland. Once I got to there, I glimpsed my first one that was on a wall on the woodland edge. It ran off into the trees and once I got into the wood there was no sign of it. I kept going and got to a dry stone wall, and there was one on the other side. I chucked some peanuts and sunflower seeds as far as I could over the wall and waited, peering over the top. In minutes there was a handful of red squirrels running around in front of me on the other side of the wall. After a while they ran through the gap in the wall less than a metre from where I was sat and started running around on the other side as well. They came pretty close, as I was sat still (except for slowly panning my phone camera) in dull trousers and a camouflage coat. One climbed onto the wall I was peering over. A few were running around a few metres away from me. One even climbed over the boot of my welly at one point. They kept running through the gap in the wall next to where I was sat. I was surprised by how close some of them got. It was brilliant and I definitely intend to go back at some point. I took lots of videos of them using my phone (otherwise I'd just have loads of blurry photos). I'm having problems uploading to youtube at the moment, but here are some screenshots of the best bits. I may get some of the best videos later if I can sort youtube out.

I could be wrong, but don't the police release this data anyway? The article says there was a freedom of information request, which I would have thought would be pointless (except for it creating more of a "story").

I'd question this part of the article where he tries to bash the RSPB: "But the same kind of ‘environmentalist’ make-believe has taken hold of many once respected institutions. One might expect the RSPB to be vociferous in protesting at how many birds (and bats) are killed each year by the spinning blades of our 4,500 giant wind turbines. But it has become so close to the wind industry it even receives a regular income from one of our giant power companies which builds windfarms." He seems to be unaware that the RSPB does object to wind turbine planning applications. And their objections do get wind farm developments blocked. If a wind farm is proposed for an unsuitable area (e.g. on a migration route, near an internationally important site, etc) the RSPB has no problem in objecting. They just don't object to every single one of them, they will only object if they actually have a case on grounds of the threat to birds, and they simply don't have a case against all of them. Describing the RSPB as "once respected" is also highly questionable. As for Countryfile in general, I'l watch it if I know there is a specific thing on it that I want to see, but I'm certainly not a regular viewer. I think they could do with covering conservation issues in greater detail, including the under-reported issues that could do with some attention. That said, I haven't watched it for a while.

You should probably take note of this. https://www.facebook.com/Foxinparliament?fref=ts This appears to be an animal rights organisation within the Labour party, and it promotes an anti-shooting message. Not just pheasant and grouse shooting, but all shooting. Including pest control and conservation. And not just things like tackling raptor persecution and improving welfare on game farms which lots of shooters would agree with, they are actively promoting a total ban on shooting. I don't know exactly how influential it is, but they will no doubt try to put what pressure they can on the Labour party in areas like shooting. Labour may not officially be anti-shooting (in principle), but if push came to shove they would probably adopt those sort of policies pretty quickly. Especially if the Green party start to eat into their vote - the Greens have quite a heavy focus on animal welfare, so it's a policy area Labour might use to win back voters.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2947371/Decaying-corpses-unexploded-bombs-miles-rubble-Shocking-images-Syrian-city-45-000-suffered-devastation-scale-Second-World-War-four-month-battle-drive-ISIS-out.html Just saw this article about Kobane, Syria. The town that ISIS tried to capture but were driven out of after four months of fighting and air strikes. It's got one or two typos in it, but it has some pictures of the town, including a few before and after pictures showing the devastation. Despite the headline, there are no graphic pictures in the article.

For me it's a bit unusual. I'm happy that I get time off from university and will get time off work when I get a proper job. But I also get very nostalgic at Christmas time for some reason.

I posted this on a different forum and thought it was worth posting here as well. I was just wondering this as I tend to get a bit nostalgic around Christmas time. I remember being on a steam train one year with a santa on it. Not entirely sure where it was but after looking around I would bet money on it being Grosmont (North York Moors railway). I must have been about 4. I also remember (a bit more clearly) winning some Christmas toy at school when I was about the same age. There were several different ones but I cried in the assembly because I wanted the santa one instead of the one I actually got, and the teacher then gave me the santa one instead. I think I still have it somewhere. So what are your earliest Christmas memories?

So Arabic names are on the rise. Soon every Tom, **** and Harry will be called Mohammed.

Depends on the people really. Rebellious backbench MPs defecting to UKIP probably won't change that reputation much, while more mainstream Conservatives and cabinet ministers would destroy their "anti-politics" support.

It'll be interesting to see if any more MPs defect to UKIP after this. Carswell and Reckless aren't the only strong Euroskeptics in the Conservative party, there are other backbench MPs who might make the move to UKIP if they win this by election. And if that were to happen, what would the effect be on the Conservative party?

It's not an either or situation though. Encouraging them to play on games like minecraft (quite a creative game that some schools are apparently using) doesn't mean they won't spend time outside. I played on video games a lot as a kid, but I still spent most of my childhood outside and have fond memories.

The problem with Labour right now is that they don't really offer much. It's basically "we're like the Tories, but we're nicer so vote for us". They've got nothing beyond "not Tory". If Labour reinvented themselves and came up with some positive vision that really set them apart from the other main parties they would be doing much better.

You do need to be careful with reports like this. Some users have reported incidents that were faked. I spoke to BASC about this a while ago and there have been some incidents where on investigation, the pheasants turned out to have been shot with rifles, which poachers have been known to do. Some reports will be due to poachers and not legitimate shoots. There are some convincing reports of dumping by actual shooting estates, but I don't believe for one second it's on the scale animal rights activists want people to believe. We get a handful of reports every now and then and that's about it, many of them unproven. But then animal rights groups issue press releases claiming the number of birds involved is in the thousands, which there is simply no evidence for.

I'm amazed at the lengths cretinous politicians are prepared to go to to destroy the environment, and how very few politicians of any parties seem to care about it. Absolutely disgusting, especially when you bear in mind the "greenest government ever" promise, which has already been broken on loads of occasions. Weird how the media doesn't seem to give much attention to things like this either.

We have two cockatiels. Not that unusual, but the second one was one we got from a local farmer who found it in his barn - must have escaped from somewhere. There's also a tortoise at home.

Pine martens and red squirrels have coexisted for thousands of years and still do in the highlands of Scotland. I doubt that pine martens are any problem for red squirrels. Some studies suggest that grey squirrels are more vulnerable to pine martens as greys spend more time on the ground and are less nimble than the smaller lighter red squirrels.

When I was a kid I saw a water vole on a fishing lake (must have been sometime early 2000s). Never seen one since. More recently (still a few years ago) we had a lapwing nesting on a field that we used to drive through to get to a pheasant pen. Had to watch out for the chicks every time we went down, and they all survived and fledged (I think there was 2 or 3 chicks). I've also had a roe deer barking at me twice. One time I managed to get it on video (you can't see the deer but you can hear it). I've heard reports of pine martens in the North York Moors near where I usually live (I'm at university at the moment) but despite my best efforts, including walks out in early morning, I have yet to see one. When I get some free time next spring and summer, I'm going to try and tick some rarer ones off my list, like pine marten and red squirrel. Maybe otter as well.

From 9 until about 12:30 I had training for a student ambassador job at my university. After that I called my grandparents and talked to them on the phone for a bit, then went shopping. A few hours later I went back because I had forgotten milk.

Is there a reason for that? We never had any restrictions on packed lunches. I only had school lunches for one day in all of my school time (in year 1 I think) and I hated it. One time in around year 3 or 4 there was talk of lunch boxes being inspected to make sure only "healthy" stuff was brought in packed lunches. Thankfully that never happened and I continued to bring whatever I wanted.

Chop Gate isn't a long drive from where I live (where I usually live, I'm at university in Shropshire at the moment). I've been to that area and there are a few big shooting estates, pheasant and grouse. There's lots of dead pheasants on that road as well, at least there has been every time I've been along there.

Looks like there's a campaign to get wildlife conservation on the political agenda before the general election, getting 100,000 signatures in six weeks. http://www.smallholder.co.uk/news/11536944.Nature_campaign_fronted_by_red_squirrel_called_Bob_gets_100_000_votes_for_nature_in_just_six_weeks/