2019 highlights of a wilder Italian life
My Italian life in 2019 started in January with a whale of a murmuration with a raptor on its tail. Just click …
Caterpillage: The Lackeys and Emperors of Matera
Caterpillar. I love the word. Caterpillar. Isn’t it a strange one to pronounce? Here in Matera there are huge moth caterpillars on …
Swirling Swifts mating in Matera
It’s the morning we leave Matera and we want to squeeze every last drop of joy out of the place. It may …
Precision
Just how precise is this feral Pigeon with its tiny twig? I’m not sure it’s going to be that much use as …
Ruined
Ruin Lizards. No, that’s not an instruction. Ruins are where these Italian Wall Lizards live. In Italy there are civilisations’ worth of …
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 …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #10
When a Lesser Kestrel lands on a wire outside our bedroom window I know what I want to do. I want to …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #9
There are Lesser Kestrels before breakfast, Lesser Kestrels on the way to breakfast, a break from Lesser Kestrels for breakfast and then Lesser Kestrels after breakfast. In Matera, there are Lesser Kestrels everywhere.
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #8
It’s five o’clock in the morning and she’s calling immediately outside our window. I think she wants her mate. The tone is …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #7
We’re having close encounters of the wildlife kind: There are Lesser Kestrels all over Matera. I’m sure the locals must become immune …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #6
Matera. Just look at it. Isn’t it magnificent? What a city! The ancient heart of the stone city of Matera is where …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #5
We’ve just been on a brief trip to one of my favourite places. It’s Matera, in the south of Italy. It’s the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Grillaio in Matera
The Lesser Kestrel is such a disappointing English name for such a fantastic bird. The Italians call them Grillaio, after their main …
The Lesser Emperor of Matera
We’re in Matera in the south of Italy. It’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, with palaeolithic caves on …
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 …