Category Archives: Uncategorized
See you at the Bird Fair?
A week today it’s Day One of the Bird Fair. In a ‘summer’ in which many outdoor events have been cancelled because of wet weather it was reassuring to see this post of Facebook by Tim Appleton earlier in the week: Been a few stressful few weeks, what with highest reservoir levels ever, saturated fields, …
How are your holidays?
I’ve been wandering around Scotland recently and had a great time seeing scenery and wildlife. I think I may set you a little brain teaser about it in a while so I won’t give too much away. However, wildlife highlights have included otter, red squirrel, Scotch argus, bottle-nosed dolphin, leaping salmon and the occasional midge. …
Tossers
I spent a few minutes looking at a fairly commonplace bird the other day – except no bird is commonplace, particularly if you watch them rather than just see them. This bird was on a beach, as they often are, and it was turning over pebbles as its name, turnstone, would suggest it does. Have …
Rare breeders
The issue of British Birds to which I probably look forward the most is the annual report of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel. In the July BB the Panel reports on 2010. It was a year of southern herons and southern warblers. If you read my article on climate change in the August Birdwatch you …
Flying ants
Last week there was a flock of black-headed gulls above my back garden and much higher there were swifts wheeling around. Both species were feeding on flying ants – so I contributed my observation to the Society of Biology flying ant survey. I wonder how many more of these I will see? This was good …
Pheasants
Remember there was a bit of fuss about pheasants and buzzards back in May? Around that time I was writing an article for BBC Wildlife magazine about pheasants! Now the article is out in the September (!) BBC Wildlife. Pheasants are amazing birds. They are tasty, beautiful and interesting. They are also amazingly abundant in …
What has stayed the same?
In the June issue of British Birds – which has a lovely, vicious sparrowhawk on its cover, I was struck by the juxtaposition of two papers. One was about lesser-spotted woodpeckers and the other about Dartford warblers in the Thames Basin heathlands of Surrey. Each was an interesting and valuable record of what we know, …
Having a website
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably never give much thought to what it takes to keep a website like this one up and running. This blog tells you a bit about the details of running a website. Hosting: you need a web address (this one is www.markavery.info) and that’s something …
It must be August because it’s July
I hope you think it is reasonable that when Birdwatch arrives at my home I immediately turn to my column ‘the political birder’. It’s not that I need to see my name in print, but I do need to remind myself what I wrote about as there will be another column already in the pipeline …
Saturday cutting the lawn
Yesterday may have been summer, so I cut the lawn. Well, I call it a lawn but it was looking more like a small scruffy meadow as the wet weather had been good for grass growth but bad for grass cutting. I noticed there were lots and lots of insects in the grass – and …