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The Earthshot Prize
I’ve just been listening to Prince William talking about the Earthshot Prize – it sounds certain to be ‘the most ambitious and prestigious of its kind – designed to incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years.’ – https://earthshotprize.org The Earthshot Prize is ‘taking inspiration from President John F. Kennedy’s…
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Maxwell Knight: Nature detective, MI5 agent, and supporter of the veterinary profession.
To coincide with James Bond returning to the screen in what will be Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 with the eagerly-awaited ‘No Time To Die’, we’d like to share a piece published in the careers section of the Vet Record (25th September 2021) highlighting that Maxwell Knight was an enthusiastic supporter of the veterinary…
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Re-Introducing Extinct Wildlife into England
By Graham Wellstead. The Countryside Alliance recently published news that Defra are signalling opportunities for the re-introduction of a number of species, including beaver, Scottish wildcats and golden eagles. A task force has been set up by Natural England to look at the return of species which have been lost. The draw of bringing back animals…
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Part 3: Primitive and Complex (and crème brûlée)
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS. Exploration of the Solar System looking for evidence of habitability is about ‘primitive life’, with no expectation of anything beyond tiny bacterial-style cells, possibly with viruses. Single-celled life forms ruled Earth for 1.5 billion years before the evolution of bigger modern cells, and in terms of total biomass they still…
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Part 2: Promising planets, Dry worlds, and Water-bears
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS Language of Life The term ‘Earthlife’ acknowledges that all life we know uses the same universal coding system to read its DNA. The way it translates DNA into bodies is amazingly neat, but uses a ‘language’ that’s arisen by chance. When humans first made words with meanings, two tribes on opposite continents would…
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Norfolk Nature Notes, May 2021
By John and Margaret Cooper It is May and spring is progressing apace here in West Norfolk. During the past week we have had periods of sunshine, alternating with light rain. John goes out most days on his bike. On the local lake (Figure 1) there are currently young geese, greylag and Canada, with their…
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Feathers and Fun
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LIFE, BUT NOT WHERE WE KNOW IT? Part 1: Life on Mars
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS. Are we alone ? We no longer believe that Planet Earth holds the only possibility of life, just as we know that our whole Solar System is extremely small in the vastness of space. We already recognise Mars, possibly Venus, and at least three moons of the giant planets Jupiter…
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AES Honorary Life Membership for John Cooper.
Last week co-founder of the FFON website, John Cooper received the letter below from the Amateur Entomologists’ Society (AES) bestowing upon him Honorary Life Membership of the AES. I received a note from John’s wife, Margaret Cooper saying ‘This is a delightful honour, not only because John has been a member of the AES since…
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“Our first ever slow worm in the garden…”
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Where Have All Our Butterflies Gone?
By Dr. David Glynne Fox This article is based on almost seventy years of personal observations in the wild, primarily in and around my home county of Nottinghamshire, although these results sadly also apply to much of the UK. Many theories have been put forward as to why many species of British butterflies and moths…
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Save Burlington House: Letter from supporters published in The Sunday Telegraph on 21st March 2021, #LinneanAtBH
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THE NAR VALLEY IN NORFOLK – A FOOT SAFARI DURING THE COVID LOCKDOWN Part 2.
Written by John and Margaret Cooper: Pentney to King’s Lynn walk 13 – 15 July 2020. A report on our walk – and the natural history that we saw – for the FFON Armchair Naturalist website: https://thefrightenedfaceofnature.com/ In Part 1 of this saga of our Nar Valley adventure, published in FFON on 1st September…
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Situations vacant: The World Needs More Nature Detectives
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Threat to the Linnean Society of London @Helen_Whately @LinneanSociety #SupportGSL #LinneanatBH and #SocAntiquaries
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Pressure mounts on Government as Burlington House learned societies join forces to fight for science, heritage and the arts #SupportGSL #LinneanatBH and #SocAntiquaries
The future of three learned societies at London’s famous Burlington House is now under threat as rents increase by over 3,000% and continue to escalate Geological Society and Linnean Society join the public campaign initiated by the neighbouring Society of Antiquaries Relocation represents a major threat to the Societies and the important work they do…
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@jamesowild @timloughton Please Help @LinneanSociety Save Burlington House. Here’s what nature needs:
James Wild MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA Dear Mr Wild Save Burlington House Campaign May I draw your attention to an article in The Guardian dated 28 February 2021 (Under threat: the birthplace of Darwin’s historic theory | Science | The Guardian) that highlights the dilemma of five renowned scientific Societies based at…
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Linnean Society: Save Burlington House Appeal @LinneanSociety
Lia Nici MP Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby Martin Vickers MP Member of Parliament for the Cleethorpes Constituency Dear Lia and Martin I am writing to you as my local Member of Parliament to ask for your support to safeguard the future of The Linnean Society of London. Whilst I appreciate this is an issue…
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The Water Spider: An Enigma Beneath the Surface
By Dr. David Glynne Fox The Water Spider (Argyroneta aquatica) is, as far as is known, the only truly aquatic spider in the world, living almost entirely submerged in ponds throughout Britain and Europe. Although widespread, the species is very local, but often abundant where found. However, none of the ponds that I knew of…
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Redwings in the garden this morning
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LIFE IN THE TIME OF THE VIRUS by Dr Valerie Jeffries.
Here we are, the world-dominating Hominin, miserably in thrall to the tiniest and simplest form of life, a virus. It’s not even alive in some opinions, depending on your definition of Life. We learn the things that Life must be capable of, all of it contributing to that overarching requirement, reproduction. A virus can do…
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Happy New Year to friends and followers of the FFON
2020 was our biggest year for the FFON website – readership grew by more than 200% and came courtesy of 90 plus countries. We couldn’t have created so much wonderful content without the help of our intrepid correspondents, who put coronavirus fears aside to write about the natural world. Thank you! Happy New Year from…
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Butterfly feeding experiment by Rowan Allen who is eight-years-old.
The following article, “Butterfly feeding experiment”, is by Rowan Allen, who is eight-years-old. Readers of FFON will remember Rowan’s previous contributions to the website – a poem about an ocelot and a piece looking at the differences between poisonous and venomous animals. Rowan has always been fascinated by invertebrates that she sees but this year, in part due…
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Move Over Robin Hood? With a Tribute to Pamela
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Podcast Episode 8: Make Nature Your Playground and “Consider the Colours”.
Welcome to autumn: Simon, John and Margaret join forces this autumn/winter with the wonderful team at Haith’s wild bird food (https://www.haiths.com/) to launch their new project – “Make Nature Your Playground”. Gemma Saunders (Customer Care Manager) introduces herself and explains more about the project and how Haith’s aim to encourage parents and grandparents to get…
