Paul writes: One of my favourite signs of spring is the appearance of Anthophora plumipes, or the Hairy-footed Flower Bee to give it its friendlier English name. This is a solitary bee which nests in walls or chimney stacks, In Hunmanby, on the north east edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, they usually appear at…
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Wild food (7) – Blackberries by Ian Carter
No series on wild food would be complete without the humble blackberry and there can’t be many people who haven’t picked and eaten them at one time or another. Parents who are wary (or unaware) of almost all other forms of wild food will happily send their kids out blackberrying – at least that used…
Sunday book review – Winter Birds by Lars Jonsson
Reviewed by Ian Carter When I was first getting interested in wildlife in the 1980s, Lars Jonsson was seen almost as a cult figure by young birders. He had published a series of slimline fieldguides based on different habitats (mountains, sea coast etc) and these were later updated and amalgamated into one book covering all…
Tim Melling – Whinchat
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Tim writes: Whinchat is now largely an upland bird in Britain having suffered a 47% range contraction since 1968-72. A range contraction means that a 10km square that had breeding Whinchats (could have been one or dozens of pairs) in the 68-72 Atlas, did not hold breeding Whinchats in the 2007-11 Atlas. Monitoring of…
An Unreliable History of Birdwatching (29) by Paul Thomas
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