
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 …
My Italian life in 2019 started in January with a whale of a murmuration with a raptor on its tail. Just click …
Caterpillar. I love the word. Caterpillar. Isn’t it a strange one to pronounce? Here in Matera there are huge moth caterpillars on …
It’s the morning we leave Matera and we want to squeeze every last drop of joy out of the place. It may …
Just how precise is this feral Pigeon with its tiny twig? I’m not sure it’s going to be that much use as …
Ruin Lizards. No, that’s not an instruction. Ruins are where these Italian Wall Lizards live. In Italy there are civilisations’ worth of …
There’s a bright blue iridescent moth flying in the middle of the day in the south of Italy. I have no idea …
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.
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 …
Out in the countryside in Matera in Italy, the dry heat and the scent of herbs surrounds us. I particularly love the …
Seeing a Swallowtail butterfly in Italy is always a shock. They are just so big: The Parco della Murgia Materana is full …
I don’t know how long photobombing has been ‘a thing’. Spoiling someone’s photograph by appearing in it unexpectedly must have appeared very …
When a Lesser Kestrel lands on a wire outside our bedroom window I know what I want to do. I want to …
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.
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 …
We’re having close encounters of the wildlife kind: There are Lesser Kestrels all over Matera. I’m sure the locals must become immune …
Matera. Just look at it. Isn’t it magnificent? What a city! The ancient heart of the stone city of Matera is where …
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 …
It’s taken me a while to identify this beetle I saw in Italy this summer. It really shouldn’t have taken me this …
We are out in the nature reserve which occupies the opposite side of the gorge on which the ancient city of Matera …
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 word falco, from falcon, means sickle. We’re watching Lesser Kestrels hunting in the fields outside Matera. It’s a breathtaking spot: Across …
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 …
Matera in the south of Italy is a stone city full of nooks and crannies. It’s perfect habitat for Jackdaws, or Taccole …
The Lesser Kestrel is such a disappointing English name for such a fantastic bird. The Italians call them Grillaio, after their main …
We’re in Matera in the south of Italy. It’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, with palaeolithic caves on …
As well as all the Lesser Kestrels, there are Jackdaws everywhere in Matera in southern Italy. They’re on the rooftops, on window …
We are wandering around Matera, a city in the south of Italy watching the Swallows. The city is vast and seemingly empty, …
I can see a tiny yellow bird at the very top of a house resting on the TV aerial in Matera in …