Standing up for Nature
I was in Berlin on Wednesday, and took a 4-hour+ walking tour of the city with Insider Walking Tours. We ended our walk at the Brandenburg Gate. I’d recommend the tour highly – a mixture of WW2, Cold War and earlier history with quite a few laughs thrown in. As a birder, it is almost…
Encouraged by reading on Twitter that after missing a year, last year, Nightingales returned to a local wood, I set out to listen again for Nightingales at Glapthorn Cow Pasture yesterday evening. The first blog post I wrote, for the RSPB on 11 May 2009, was about Nightingales in Glapthorn Cow Pasture. I wrote then…
I know it’s a terrible photograph (you’ll get some more excellent ones tomorrow morning) but I’m quite proud of it since it was taken on my phone and if you look very hard you can see… … the tiny single orange egg of an Orange Tip butterfly on the Garlic Mustard or Jack-by-the-Hedge in the…
Stanwick Lakes is 10 years old today. That is, the car park and visitor centre opened 10 years ago, apparently. There was a Roman Villa here rather longer ago than 10 years ago. And my Birdtrack complete lists go back to 2005 – 485 of them which record 162 species. I feel lucky to have…
I’m a Radio 4 devotee – maybe even an addict. I need my fix of BBC Radio 4 every day and I almost always get it. I’m usually awake long before Farming Today but tend to be having my most productive part of the day while the annoying farming programme is broadcast so I try…
Urban Daffodils brightening the day in Oundle We are in Daffodil season again – getting towards the end of it in these parts. And, for me (I’ve written about this before), there are good Daffodils and bad Daffodils. Good Daffodils are either wild Daffodils, and there aren’t any of those around here, or urban/garden Daffodils….
This year I am keeping a list of birds seen in or from my garden. The Snowdrops are gone but the Forsythia is now in full bloom. Well, I’m on a respectable but not very impressive 34 species so far in 2019, with March bumping up the number by 4 species: Robin House Sparrow Jackdaw…
… where the Curlew have very long bills … Not much wildlife here… … but lots here … … and just seeing these gnawed trees was an enormous treat and excitement.
This year I am keeping a list of birds seen in or from my garden. Well, I’m on a respectable but not very impressive 30 species so far, 24 in January with an additional 6 this month: Robin House Sparrow Jackdaw Blackbird Woodpigeon Starling Black-headed Gull Great Tit Red Kite Carrion Crow Chaffinch Goldfinch Rook…
I paid a visit to Wicken Fen on Friday evening – it was such a lovely day I wanted to get out and away from a computer for a while. And with my NTS membership card it’s free to get in. Let’s cut to the punchline – we saw a male Hen Harrier twice. Twice,…