A bricklayer in East Yorkshire has spent 35 years putting up barn owl nest boxes on weekends. This year, the region saw 308 owlets hatch.
His name is Robert Salter. He's 56 and does bricklaying full time. In 1990, he saw a piece on the news about a man in Lincolnshire installing barn owl boxes, and decided he'd do the same. He started with five.
He now has more than 350 boxes scattered across fields, farms, outbuildings, and trees in East Yorkshire. Every June, he takes four weeks off from bricklaying and visits them with his wife Sue. Scrambling up ladders, ringing chicks, cleaning boxes, repairing the ones the weather got to. He's a licensed bird ringer for the British Trust for Ornithology.
In 2024, the region ringed 95 owlets. In 2025, the count was 308. The Barn Owl Trust says that nationally, this year was "pretty poor" for barn owl breeding, but east Yorkshire is the exception, and it's the exception because of one man with a ladder.
The barn owl population in the UK was estimated at 4,000 pairs in the mid-2000s and crashed to roughly 1,000 by the early 2010s. The species is still recovering.
Most of conservation is one person who refuses to give up.
More people need to know that ancient Roman engineering was so precise, their aqueducts still produce clear water to this very day - 2,000 years later.
The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans...
The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
Conclusion:
Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
A UK jury has refused to convict the two Muslim men involved in the 2024 Manchester Airport police assault.
You can be Muslim in the UK, beat police officers, and walk free, but if you are a White kid, you will be arrested while you bleed out.
A car tax disk from 1982, for six months at £38.50
A gallon of petrol cost £1.60
A pint of beer cost 61p
A pint of milk cost 20p
A 22" colour TV cost £300
Average house price was £33,000
A Ford Cortina cost £4,200
6 eggs cost 40p
The AVERAGE annual salary was £5,000