Sunday book review – The Return of the Grey Partridge by Roger Morgan-Grenville and Edward Norfolk

This is the story of the recovery of Grey Partridge on the Duke of Norfolk’s land at Peppering on the South Downs (that’s Arundel Castle on the cover). It is a beautifully written tale (by Roger Morgan-Grenville) of a successful species recovery project based on the landowner’s enthusiasm for having a wild partridge shoot for his entertainment and that of his visitors.

In the interests of full transparency, I visited this area long ago at the invitation of Dick Potts in the period after he had left GWCT (then GCT) but before I left RSPB so that puts it in the period 2002-2011, and through a close reading of the text I think it must have been as long ago as 2005 – longer ago than I would have guessed. But I was back at Peppering at the invitation of the two authors about a month ago to see how things had gone. It’s quite fun being chauffeured around by an enthusiastic Duke (who organised the funeral of the late Queen) and who wanted to talk Grey Partridges all the time.  Also, a few days ago, I was present at a London  event to launch this book, even though it isn’t published until late February, which was full of gamekeepers, grouse moor owners, gun manufacturers and a few members of the Upper and Lower Chambers.

Read the full article on Mark Avery’s Blog.