Badger sniffs out some more snacks.

Badger returns in search of snacks.

More night visitors in the garden.

Badger ventures out!

 Padding quietly across the muddy lawn comes badger. He knows that hidden under the old pot lid will be some tasty snacks, so he carefully makes his way there and then moves the lid out of the way and finds the food.

Badger caught out in the daylight last year!

Greetings during the epidemic

Here Hannah and Mark explore how best to greet during the epidemic. 

Note added later - we now appreciate that we should also stay at least 2 metres apart! 

Hannah (wearing a fetching hat) attempts a hug!

But Uncle Mark says - No!

Handshake?

No, not that either.

So, what are the options?

1. Raising  (or 'tipping') your hat (hence the hats)!

This is nicely British but perhaps impractical as a main form of greeting because  you  need  a  hat!

2. The salute!

Both easy and hygienic but perhaps too military and sometimes used in a  mocking way!.

3. The Japanese foot-tap.

Because  there is physical contact - still some chance of pathogen transfer 

(also requires good sense of balance).

4. The elbow nudge

Probably more hygienic than a hand-shale but, as we are encouraged to sneeze and cough  into our elbows, perhaps not optimal.

5. 'Prayer-hands'

We quite quite liked this gentle greeting but not as much as option 6.

6. The head bob and heart touch.

So, this is a slight bow (from the neck) and then you touch your hand to the middle of your chest (roughly where your heart is) and you can keep your hand there longer if you wish to  express a stronger pleasure in seeing the other  person.

This is also best accompanied by eye contact and a smile!

Two new key papers on marine mammal welfare.

And both are free online
Whale welfare tool paper HERE
Predator control paper HERE

A visit to an Indian wetland - Nasarovar in Gujarat

Sunrise over Nasarovar - viewed from out on the lake in small skiff.

Some 60km outside of Ahmedabad lies Nasarovar wetland. This a large lake system with many small islands, reed beds, lillies and thousands of birds, many on migration. We visited in the early morning, seeing the dawn come-up from out on the lake in a small skiff. 

Purple swamp hen

Purple heron 

A brown-headed gull.

Marsh harrier (not a great photo - but seen overhead several times)

brown-headed gulls around a fishing boat

Glossy Ibis

Indian black-winged stilt

putative eastern yellow wagtail

Indian house crow

Island in the lake where visitors are taken to be offered tea, coffee and snacks - brown-headed gulls in attendance.

Tower on the island - watch that first step!

Tea making camp - one of several on the shore under simple awnings and adorned with colourful carpets

brown-headed gulls

marsh harrier

Large egret

Other keen photographers out on the lake

Red-wattled lapwing

Travelling companions.

Mark Simmonds.

Purple swamp hens

There were also some impressive animals on the road to the wetlands:

Save the Migratory Species in 2020 - the culture intervention from the United Kingdom

Here, with their kind permission is the intervention made by the UK delegation on culture:

We would like to thank the Secretariat, Scientific Council, and Animal Culture and Social Complexity working group for developing this proposal and for all of their work in this area so far.

This is an important emerging area of conservation research and we recognise the need to conserve the unique behavioural traits of populations.

Learning offers species the opportunity to use their environment adaptively, and can be important in contributing to their survival.  For example, when Matriarchal elephants guide their herds to food and water in times of drought. 

In a number of cases learning can be regarded as ‘culture’, such as when specific ways of sourcing food are passed on within particular populations or sub-populations. 

This is potentially important for population management and human interactions with these species.  Taking the work that has been done already and considering how the literature on animal culture can be applied practically is, we consider, an important step forward. For example, in discussions around how human interactions with species might affect the structure of a population. 

The UK therefore supports this proposal. We welcome suggestions from the Scientific Council and working group as to how this new area of research can be applied via practical management advice for the conservation of migratory species and we look forward to hearing more in the future. Thank you.

The walkway outside the meeting rooms for CoP13

Save the migratory species in 2020 - the harbour porpoise at CoP 13

HSI and three other non-governmental organisations brought a proposal for a concerted action for two European harbour porpoise populations.

You can find the proposal - which was agreed by the meeting - HERE.

And the speech presenting it was as follows:

Thank you – I am honoured to present this proposal to the CoP contained in document 28.2.7 Rev on the behalf of four non-governmental organisations Humane Society International, Orca, Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Coalition Clean Baltic.

Chairman, as we have just heard in the context of several other species, the history of small cetacean conservation around the world is indeed increasingly an unhappy one, as we repeatedly move too slowly to recognise problems and respond to diminishing populations.

This proposal for a concerted action is focused on two small, distinct and imperilled populations of porpoise , Phocoena phocoena, - a species in all too many ways similar to the vaquita. The first population, the Baltic harbour porpoise sits in its limited range balanced on the edge of extinction and has long been recognised to be in need of urgent conservation action; the second, the population of the Iberian peninsula has been more recently recognised as distinctive. There is considerable evidence that the effects of removals mainly resulting from fisheries activities and other factors, including chemical pollution, affecting these populations are unsustainable and the road to their extinction is paved with our indifference.  

The proposal reflects the desire of the proponent organisations to support the range states in implementing timely actions. These populations are covered by two of the CMS daughter agreements – ASCOBANS and ACCOBAMS – and an action plan – the Jastarnina Plan for the Baltic porpoise – and we strongly support these agreements and this plan. However, plans and words must now result in real actions.

Chairman, we have listened to many discussions about the critical situation of the Baltic porpoise over more than two decades and with my NGO colleagues and other experts we have helped to develop plans for it – but the reality is that it survives now only in spite of our inaction, not because of our actions.

Hence, we also respectfully request the range states to list the populations appropriately on the CMS appendices as soon as possible and implement appropriate actions before it is too late. For these populations and for many other small cetaceans around the world, unless we swiftly recognise their situation and appropriately respond, one by one they will simply wink out of existence. The world will then be a poorer place; the ecosystems less complete and more fragile; and our children will never get to see an animal that was once common in inshore waters across Europe.

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As a small celebration of the harbour porpoise, I had some stamps made up - with thanks to Lucy Molleson for lending her image to the effort.

Watching the stamps being created

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