Forester
There’s a bright blue iridescent moth flying in the middle of the day in the south of Italy. I have no idea …
Bertoloni’s Bee Orchid
Bee Orchids are the rubber sex doll of the plant world. I can’t really believe I’ve just written that sentence. Please forgive me.
Spotting chafers
We’re walking in the heat through pungent herbs, surrounded by butterflies and day-flying moths with Lesser Kestrels overhead. We’re in Matera in …
Longhorn on the Giant Fennel
Out in the countryside in Matera in Italy, the dry heat and the scent of herbs surrounds us. I particularly love the …
Undercarriage down, preparing to land
Seeing a Swallowtail butterfly in Italy is always a shock. They are just so big: The Parco della Murgia Materana is full …
Spiderbombing
I don’t know how long photobombing has been ‘a thing’. Spoiling someone’s photograph by appearing in it unexpectedly must have appeared very …
Jackdaw
There’s a Jackdaw flying fast towards me at Crime Lake: What a bird! It’s hard for me to be motivated to take …
2018 highlights of a wilder Italian life
2018 started for me with a trip to Italy to celebrate my birthday with a trip to remember – a visit to …
Mediterranean Spotted Chafer
It’s taken me a while to identify this beetle I saw in Italy this summer. It really shouldn’t have taken me this …
A Southern Comma
There’s a butterfly in front of me and I know what it is: it’s a Comma. I’ve seen it before, slurping on …
Surrounded by Giant Fennel
We are out in the nature reserve which occupies the opposite side of the gorge on which the ancient city of Matera …
It’s Not Cricket
There’s a green cricket at my feet. I’d like to get a photograph of it. I crouch down and get my pocket …
Lesser Kestrels on the rooftops
We’re on a residential street in the middle of a city. In a wall there’s a hole in the stonework and we …
Painted Lady
There’s a profusion of beautiful wild pink Valerian growing here in the south of Italy. It reminds me of being back in …
Italian Wall Lizards
There are Ruin Lizards everywhere here in the south of Italy: They know no difference between the natural rocks and the ruined …
A Bath White, not a white bath
If you try doing a Google search for the Bath White butterfly, you get a lot of white baths. Don’t try it. …
Southern Skimmer
There’s a female Southern Skimmer, Orthetrum brunneum, flying around us. It’s not a UK species; we’re in Italy. The males are a …
The meaning of Sickle
The word falco, from falcon, means sickle. We’re watching Lesser Kestrels hunting in the fields outside Matera. It’s a breathtaking spot: Across …
Swallowtails
It’s unmistakable: a Swallowtail Butterfly: It’s taken us ages to get this close. It’s hot and the butterfly is very active. Here …
The Bee-Hive Beetle
That’s bright! It’s got bright red and black striped warning colouration. It’s the Bee-Hive Beetle, Trichodes alvearius, named by Johan Christan Fabricius …
Taccole – Jackdaws in the chimneys
Matera in the south of Italy is a stone city full of nooks and crannies. It’s perfect habitat for Jackdaws, or Taccole …
No need to chase
There are Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonflies in the old city of Matera. There’s one amongst the plants on a rooftop: Changing my …
Yellow belts
It’s the hour that the greyness comes, as the sun sets, shadows lengthen and a fading yellow band retreats below the horizon. …
Blue Blood and Black Veins
For a language with 180,000 words, the English language is seriously deficient when it comes to the natural world. Take the word …
Oblivious
The service has just ended and a solitary figure walks slowly, weeping, from the church in Matera in the south of Italy: …
2017 highlights of a wilder Italian life
In 2017 I made many trips to Italy. In February it was Orbetello, staying at the most incredible AirBnB, where we were …
The Second Ladybird Book of British Birds #5 – The Jackdaw
If Jackdaws could talk, what would they say to us?
Jackdawning realisation
As well as all the Lesser Kestrels, there are Jackdaws everywhere in Matera in southern Italy. They’re on the rooftops, on window …
Swallows in the air
We are wandering around Matera, a city in the south of Italy watching the Swallows. The city is vast and seemingly empty, …
Could it be a Canary?
I can see a tiny yellow bird at the very top of a house resting on the TV aerial in Matera in …