Dog Whelk – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
One of the greatest things you can have as a child is a love of the natural world. To have the capacity …
Notes on a very small island
One of the greatest things you can have as a child is a love of the natural world. To have the capacity …
Forty years ago today, on 11 August 1976, I was 12 years old, my family were on holiday in South Wales, and …
Black Guillemots seem to be called Tysties on Orkney. This one has caught something tasty. It looks to me like a Butterfish. …
On Westray the traces of Lake Orcadie are everywhere. 380 million years ago this land we now call Westray was in the …
A fine day on Westray is better than being anywhere else on earth.
If I’m being pedantic, it’s actually sunset next to Einar, rather than sunset over Einar, but I’m hoping you’ll forgive me.
Food is a subject of much ritual and tradition, no more so than when I’m on Westray. There’s coffee and cake at …
I love Grobust beach. The walk down to it from the car park is covered in daisies.
There’s a miniature rock stack on the east coast of Westray. It’s slippery as I make my way across the rocks to photograph it at dawn.
Do you ever dream of having a different life? Do you ever dream of moving somewhere where you can savour each day? …
The Castle o’ Burrian on Westray is famous for its Puffins.
The statistics say we catch 60,000 tonnes of edible crab around the British Isles each year. Imagine if we talked about humans …
There’s a single red poppy down by the bay. It’s so fragile. As fragile as life itself.
The white clover is beautiful. In many places in the world people are discouraged from growing it because it attracts bees which may sting people. Personally I’d rather have bees than lawyers.
Guillemots are known as Aaks in Orkney. This Aak egg has been raided from the cliffs at Noup Head and eaten.
I’m on the cliffs at Westray’s Castle o’ Burrian with the Puffin Whisperer. They are such curious birds that when she calls, …
Noltland Castle is a ruin that was never finished built by a paranoid man who placed defensive positions everywhere; it has walls 7 feet thick and 71 gunloops to shoot at attackers.
The outrageous thing about several of these nousts, designed to provide protection to boats pulled up onto the shore, is that they …
A strange beast of 5,000 quills has decided to pay us a visit.
Red Bull. All I need now is the vodka.
The more you can see the horizon, the more you can see the arc of your whole life and think about what’s …