Plumage Act News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Naturalist and author W H Hudson came to Yorkshire more than 100 years ago on a mission to protect our sea birds. Here is his story...

THEIR FACES GLOW in the Manhattan sunlight, all the glorious queens, whether their wigs are hot pink or neon yellow, their eye shadow emerald or sapphire,

In the United Kingdom, Etta Lemon campaigned for 50 years against the slaughter of birds for elaborate fashion.

by Tessa Boase (Aurum £9.99, 320 pp) Sitting in a London church in 1887, a young woman gazed over the congregation and the sea of elegant ladies’ hats. In her notebook, she jotted down the names of the birds whose feathers decorated those hats — swallows, robins, blue tits, chaffinches, hummingbirds and even eagles and herons. Just as she did every week, she would write to each of the hat wearers, calmly describing the slaughter of the birds who had ended up as their fashion accessories. Today, her name is almost entirely forgotten. Yet, as this beguiling book shows, Etta Lemon is one of...

A feather in their cap: RSPB’s victory that saved millions of birds Beccy Speight, chief executive, explains why the 1921 Plumage Act was so crucial – and why the next decade will be more so A woman wears a hat with ostrich feather trimming, c. 1910. Exotic feathers were widely used on hats in the early 20th century, until the campaign by the RSPB. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images A woman wears a hat with ostrich feather trimming, c. 1910. Exotic feathers were widely used on hats in the early 20th century, until the campaign by the RSPB. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Ima...