Category Archives: Wildlife essays
Sublime
I failed completely in January and March but I hit the target in February and April. On Friday evening I visited Glapthorn Cow Pasture for my annual search for nightingales. They are pretty reliable, and there had been one reported a couple of days before, so although it was at the early end of arrival …
Rainham Marshes – Allsorts.
I had the chance to pop in to the RSPB nature reserve at Rainham Marshes on Friday – so I took it! Just off the M25 on the north bank of the Thames, a rural idyll this isn’t. And that’s part of the attraction. I made my way, by car, past Purfleet station where I …
Waxwings near me
I popped out one afternoon last week to visit an industrial estate. A birder going to an industrial estate in January is most likely to mean ‘waxwings’. And that is what it meant on this occasion. Waxwings has been reported from the Burton Latimer/Barton Seagrave area over the previous few days and when I had …
Flocking to Snettisham
Last Friday I was up early, even for me, so as to be at Snettisham RSPB nature reserve by 0730 to see one of the UK’s finest wildlife spectacles. And I wasn’t alone as the car park was almost full, even at this early hour. There were around 200 of us wrapped up against the …
Sunshine
On Monday the sun was shining and I suddenly thought – why not go and enjoy it? So I did. Summer sun means butterflies and I headed to Fermyn Woods to see if it might be third time lucky in looking for purple emperors. The long line of cars parked by the road on a …
Not great for butterflies
Last week I was lucky with a pine marten, and some whales, and lots of other wildlife, but this year I haven’t had much luck with butterflies. And butterflies haven’t had much luck either with the cold wet weather. From memory, the only butterflies I have seen this year have been a very few peacocks, …
…and there was more
Yesterday’s blog ended before 9am on Tuesday morning with pine marten off the bucket list. But there was more… I spent more time enjoying the pine forest but then headed off. I stopped at Nethy Bridge and looked for dippers from the attractive stone bridge, but with no luck. Then it was off over the …
Timing
Do you have a bucket list- a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket? I’ve just taken one off my list as I saw a much-wanted species in Abernethy Forest earlier this week. Timing is everything with wildlife isn’t it? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time clearly …
Seeing the wood for the clouds
It hasn’t been a great spring, I feel a bit grumpy about the awful weather. It means that I haven’t seen as many butterflies as I would have liked so I’ll be looking to catch up whenever the heat wave strikes (as surely it will). At the weekend I went out looking for Wood White …
Gone twitching – not really
At the weekend I went on a twitch, looking for a rare bird – except it is just a rarer bird rather than a really rare one. I realised that I didn’t see a spotted flycatcher last year, partly because I was looking at mountain bluebirds instead, and I hadn’t seen one yet this year …