Yarner ravens

Below Trendlebere Down, looking over the Bovey valley, is Yarner Wood. Part of the East Dartmoor Woods and Heaths NNR, it is ancient upland oakland, probably pre-1600. More importantly, for us, it is our patch. In spring, pied flycatchers arrive and the tree canopy is alive with small passerines, as well as all three of our native woodpeckers. There is a hide (in late winter the feeders attract a wide variety of tits and finches, as well as nuthatches) and the quiet woodland paths wind through the undercover of bilberry. As well as the birds, on warm summer days we have sat and watched roe deer and butterflies. Good Friday saw us walking up the path from the car park, buffeted by a bitter north wind, and far from sure that we would see any birds at all.

It is too early, and cold, for the pied flycatchers and other summer visitors, and the wind in the tree tops drowned out such bird song as there was. We were hoping to see ravens. The edge of the moor, where Hay Tor plunges into the Bovey valley is a good spot for watching these magical birds. There is a pair that nests somewhere on the ridge, across from the Yarner Wood hide, and we have often seen them above the treeline. This is the time of year to see ravens display, although as Caroline said as we reached the hide, chance would be a fine thing, given the weather. Yet as is so often the case in this part of the world, the weather blows through fast, and sun followed the rain. From the hide we saw one of the ravens, having first heard it: the call is unmistakeable, deep and carrying. As the weather improved we walked outside and almost immediately saw more ravens high in the sky, five in all.

For the next fifteen minutes we stood and watched. Three disappeared below the trees, but a pair remained and their aerial display was breathtaking, including the raven’s piece de resistance, a full barrel roll at speed, wings tucked in. And when this pair had gone, three more in the distant sky resolved themselves into a pair mobbing a large raptor, which through the glasses did not appear a buzzard, and was too large for a sparrowhawk or a kestrel. Although the rule is always go for the obvious (which here would be a buzzard), I think that along with the ravens we were also watching one of the scarcest, and most persecuted, of our hawks, accipiter gentilis, the northern goshawk. There was a report of a goshawk on Trendlebere some two weeks ago. Every day at Yarner has something memorable, but this was more special than most.

Human rights, human dignity and human life

I am not sure which I find more disturbing, the Embryology Bill or the behaviour of Gordon Brown, in indicating that he is prepared to allow his MPs almost (but not quite) a free vote, but only if the mathematics show that the government will win (see the report on BBC News).

“The prime minister is prepared to allow Labour MPs who oppose a controversial embryo bill to vote against pieces of the legislation, the BBC has learned. The votes would be permitted only if they did not threaten the passage of the bill, a government official said.”

The government’s response to the warning from leading Labour MPs that a rebellion is on the cards, is a self-serving mixture of good old-fashioned Stalinism, control-freakery and sucking up to vested interests. I suppose we should expect nothing less of a man who writes about courage but who so clearly lacks it: obsessed by power and its exercise, and convinced that he and his acolytes alone know what is best for us. The arguments paraded are designed to make those who oppose the bill appear as enemies of progress, and unconcerned about our health and welfare. Thus Ben Bradshaw (fast becoming the acceptable face of the Brownite camp):

“This is about using pre-embryonic cells to do research that has the potential to ease the suffering of millions of people in this country. The government has taken a view that this is a good thing.”

We should all, therefore, be reassured? Or should we? For a different view, see Nadine Dorries’ post in Coffee House, The Embryology Bill, cui bono? And the opposition cuts across party lines. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph this morning, Labour MP Stephen Byers – a former cabinet minister under Tony Blair – said the public would “look on in disbelief” if Mr Brown did not offer a free vote, and (BBC News again) “Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy is reportedly prepared to quit the cabinet rather than vote for the bill.”

Tibet

More disturbing news from Tibet. An interesting post by James Forsyth in Coffee House, suggesting it may be time (and notwithstanding realpolitik) to think about whether we should boycott Beijing 2008. He links to Vaclav Havel’s letter in Comment is free on Guardian.co.uk, which is headed “Asking China to exercise restraint in Tibet is not enough: the international community must use its influence to halt human rights abuses”, and finishes

“Merely urging the Chinese government to exercise the “utmost restraint” in dealing with the Tibetan people, as governments around the world are doing, is far too weak a response. The international community, beginning with the United Nations and followed by the European Union, Asean, and other international organisations, as well as individual countries, should use every means possible to step up pressure on the Chinese government to allow foreign media, as well as international fact-finding missions, into Tibet and adjoining provinces in order to enable objective investigations of what has been happening; release all those who only peacefully exercised their internationally guaranteed human rights, and guarantee that no one is subjected to torture and unfair trials; enter into a meaningful dialogue with the representatives of the Tibetan people.

Unless these conditions are fulfilled, the International Olympic Committee should seriously reconsider whether holding this summer’s Olympic games in a country that includes a peaceful graveyard remains a good idea.”

For a less reverent comment, see Robert Shrimsley in today’s FT, Carrying a torch for China in Tibet. This imagines all you need to know about our lords and masters (?) in Europe.

A turbulent priest

Just when you thought that the Church of England was slipping into managerial mediocrity, a surprisingly splenetic rant in the Telegraph this morning from Peter Mullen, the Rector of St Michael’s, Cornhill and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange. He is not a follower of the Rowan Williams’ school of muddled thinking. Read the entire column, but here is a taster:

“We might have expected the Church to resist the decay, but instead it has connived with the destructive sexual and social revolution begun in the 1960s. Back then, I voted for homosexuality to be decriminalised. But this meant “between consenting adults in private” – where “between” meant two, “adults” meant men over 21 and “private” meant behind locked doors. I did not foresee the obscene and coercive “Gay Pride” pantomimes that now disfigure our high streets.

Who would have thought we would live to see the Bishop of Hereford fined £47,000 and made to attend a re-education course because he refused to employ a practising homosexual in his diocese’s youth services? How long before I am carted from the pulpit to the nick for preaching that sodomy is not morally equivalent to Christian marriage?”

Shrewd Bill is still Slick Willy

A fascinating column from Clive Crook in the FT today, on Bill Clinton’s play of a joint Clinton-Obama ticket. After setting the context (Obama ahead in elected delegates after Pennsylvania but not enough to settle the nomination), he comments

This swirling uncertainty is the context in which Bill Clinton’s recent claim that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be unstoppable must be understood. It was an extremely shrewd political manoeuvre. It asserts a presumption, nothing if not bold, that Mrs Clinton is still the senior partner. It nominates Mr Obama as the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2016 – and he is young enough for that to make sense. And it issues a summons, cynical as this may be coming from the Clintons, to party unity. This way, the Clinton campaign is saying, the party can come together, front both its favourite candidates (two for the price of one, three if you count Bill) and maximise its general election prospects.