Standing up for Nature
Brimming over with bees I’m going to be honest with you. Covid-19 and lockdown have left me feeling decidedly befuddled. Confined to my home and garden would normally be my idea of heaven, but positive feelings are tempered with the frustration of finding online delivery slots at Sainsbury’s, incessantly cleaning door knobs, and trying to…
Wildlife from my Window I bought it from the pound shop. I really didn’t think it would work, but for a quid, I was willing to try. I stuck the small, clear-plastic bird feeder on the window on New Year’s Day and waited. The seed clumped together, it had to be emptied, washed and refilled…
Since the start of lockdown. I have been to my local wood every day. However, just as the anemones and bluebells are making their yearly appearance, I feel that dreaded tickle at the back of my throat. It is not a sinister cough – phlegmy and fruity-sounding, without any other symptoms. But the advice online…
Pantone 18-3838 With a sense of playful irony, I suggested they call her Corina Violet, this nameless baby born in a pandemic. A pretty name for a harsh moment. My garden is laced with violets and I spot them lining the path through the woodland that hugs the river on my solitary, daily walk. Issac…
Time for hoverflies My dad used to say: “Time flies, we cannot, as so erratic is their flight.” He might have been quoting someone, but for some reason I never thought to ask. In lockdown, time is far from flying but I have been making time for flies. Hoverflies to be exact; except it’s hard…
Being More Gilbert Sitting in the deserted garden at The Wakes in Selborne looking out on the Great Mead and Selborne Hanger is one of life’s pleasures. The great oak, planted in 1729 has recently burst into leaf, the kestrels nest in their customary hole half-way up its trunk. Brimstone, peacock and orange tip butterflies…
Isolation I press my nose against the pane in wonder. Sparrows and starlings squabble over seeds, and a blackbird sings. I can half-hear it, muffled by the barrier between us. My eyes slip down the lawn, past the trees, through the borders, to the back fence, and beyond. And beyond… And beyond the fence… well,…
Lockdown birding at home By April 7th, I had already ‘enjoyed’ two weeks of self-isolation and was starting my second week of ‘ordinary’ Lockdown. I am fortunate that my garden and the fields I can see from it have most of the bird species of the surrounding habitat. I have three standard bird feeders hanging…
Tim writes: The name implies that this is a tropical species but it also occurs throughout the Southern Himalayas, so also goes by the name of Himalayan Porcupine (Histrix brachyura). Its scientific name translates as short-tailed porcupine, even though its tail is quite long, but this distinguishes it from the Long-tailed Porcupine (Trichys fasciculata), which…
Tomorrow is International Dawn Chorus Day. Read Chris Baines’s guest blog about how this all started. Sunrise is about 5:20am but it gets light before then and birds start singing before it gets light. But the forecast is fine so I’ll set the alarm for 4:30am and step outside for half an hour or so….