What a difference a lens makes
Forty years ago I kept detailed nature notebooks. I wrote down everything I saw and identified with enthusiasm, including the smallest of …
A Coal Tit record breaker
Coal Tits are record breakers. Not for their size, their distribution or their number of eggs. It’s because a pair of Coal …
Finding the Fluted Bird’s Nest fungus
There’s a fungus I’ve never see before at my feet in the woods of Orley Common in South Devon. It’s tiny, almost …
Chaffinch
This female Chaffinch is in bright sunshine against a sky like a painting: This male has wonderful bright colours. He’s in full …
Violet Oil Beetles
In Dunsford Wood there are glades and clearings full of wild daffodils. As I meander around them, stepping on Ramsons and sniffing …
Oop oop, Oop oop, Oop oop
It’s a noise like no other. I know it isn’t a pigeon or a dove. It’s a loud insistent “Oop oop.” I …
Mandarin
There’s a male Mandarin Duck, Aix galericulata, steaming towards me over the lake: It’s hard to imagine the evolutionary pressures which have …
Robin Orange-Breast
Robins don’t have red breasts; they are orange, surely? Maybe they are called red because it’s alliterative with Robin. Maybe they’re called …
Great Spotted Woodpecker
There’s a Great Spotted Woodpecker in the tree in front of me. It knows I’m here because it’s keeping to the other …
Blue Tits
Blue Tits weren’t always called Blue Tits. They were once called Titmice or Titmouse. The mice or mouse in their name doesn’t …
Seaton Wetlands
Sunshine; warmth; the feel of spring in the air. It’s a while since I’ve felt that; and that’s also true for wildlife. …
Dry rot’s wild cousin
I’ve owned a house which had dry rot. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone. Having the fungus, Serpula lacrymans, creeping through …
Groatie Buckies
On the table in the Groatie Buckies cafe on Westray, run by Stewart and Marian Groat, is a jar of Groatie Buckies. …
A solitary Goosander on the canal
Goosanders are such wonderful birds. They have amazing sawtooth bills to grip slippery fish underwater. I can see the solitary individual still …
Knowledge is over-rated
There’s a Treecreeper, Certhia familiaris, on the tree in front of me: That’s very exciting. I creep a little closer to the …
King Alfred’s burnt his cakes
There’s a seriously weird fungus growing on this fallen tree trunk. It looks the shape of bubbles, as if it’s been forced …
Spring and the Prime Rose
We’re walking along the gushing river in Dunster in Somerset. It was snowing last week. This week the English Primroses are in …
Cherries growing on Oak trees
There are Cherry Galls, Cynips quercusfolii, on the fallen Oak leaves here in Bridford Wood. They are the tree’s defensive reaction to …
Searching for an unusual Easter egg
Easter Sunday was spent with my Hungarian friends going on a fungus hunt. As you do. Or should that be, as I …
Mute
I never get bored of Mute Swans, Cygnus olor: There’s something about their size, their poise and their steady pace that enthrals …
A Bloody-Nosed Beetle on the march
If ever a beetle gave the impression of being a wind-up clockwork toy, it’s the Bloody-Nosed Beetle, Timarcha tenebricosa. Today they are …
Stock Dove
There’s a pigeon above me. I think it’s a Wood Pigeon but it looks far too small and scrawny. It’s silhouetted in …
Fresh bedding
This Squirrel has a message to all dog owners at my local country park. It’s a polite request to keep dogs on …
The secret writing on a lichen
In Bridford Wood there’s a tree. On the tree is an unusual lichen; it’s called Graphis scripta, the Secret Writing Lichen. It’s …
A reason to clear up under your bird feeder
It’s late and the light is dull. There’s nobody around at Stover Country Park apart from me and this female Great Spotted …
The wild Daffodils of Dunsford Wood
Today was a wonderful day for walking on Dartmoor. On the very far east of Dartmoor is the valley of the River …
Poisoned and shot and their nests destroyed – the Pintail Duck
Have you ever noticed that birds have no teeth? These handsome Pintails at Exeter’s Bowling Green Marsh have none: Having no teeth …
Spawn of the Frog
Will future generations have the same thrill of recognition as I do when I see a mass of frog spawn in the pond at Holden Clough?
Russian Corks
It’s getting more and more unusual to find Russian corks on the beaches and sea caves on Westray. Here are some sheltering …
Scarlet Elf Cups in Holden Clough
A large part of my childhood was spent walking many miles to a small steeply wooded valley, known in the north as …