It seemed appropriate that the first exciting new butterfly on the drive south through Spain was the Queen of Spain (to add to yesterday’s Duke). The Queen of Spain Fritillary is sometimes seen in the UK – one year there were some next to the Minsmere toilet block – but it’s not a species one…
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Duke of Wellington
Old Hooknose passed by this way a few times. The Duke of Wellington is said to have planted Elms in the city of pomegranates and there are certainly lots of Elms to be seen here in Granada. When I see an Elm I often think “What’s that? I’m sure I know that tree.’ which, I…
Living off the land
I mentioned in passing in Fighting for Birds (p103) a conversation with a man in the Nene Valley who told me that when he was a lad he had been able to fill a baker’s tray with Lapwing eggs in an afternoon. I somehow doubt that you could do that in a full day with…
Flying noses
I am a birder, but I have got used to looking for signs of spring other than the arrival of warblers and hirundines, Wheatears and Garganey, Sandwich Terns and Ring Ousels. On Sunday morning, Willow Warblers and Blackcaps were adding their songs to those of many Chiffchaffs at my local patch of Stanwick Lakes. I…
My binoculars are not happy
It’s my binoculars’ birthday today – they are 41 years old. And they aren’t happy. It isn’t just that they are feeling their age, it’s the fact that just over 50% of my fellow Brits and TM the PM have fixed it that it is on my binoculars’ birthday that ‘we’ trigger Article 50 for…
Daffs in The Guardian
Roadside Daffodils have made it into the Guardian this week in Patrick Barkham’s Notebook. I was slightly nervous in raising the subject of my feelings for feral daffodils at all last week, but I’m glad I did. It was good to get it off my chest and even better to find a fair measure of…
Feral Daffodils – don’t you just…?
I have a love-hate relationship with daffodils. Our wild daffodil Narcissus pseudonarcissus is a native species (although even that is somewhat doubtful and disputed) whose world range stretches south from Britain to Spain and Portugal and east to Germany. It is a woodland plant that occurs in carpets that add splashes of spring yellow to…
Cheltenham review
It will come as no surprise to many readers of this blog that I have been at a meeting, on a course, this week. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes and afternoons at Cheltenham racecourse (and this afternoon was sitting in front of the TV watching the racing). I go racing for several reasons,…
Yesterday morning
Yesterday morning, as the light grew but before sunrise, I was looking at one of the greatest birding spectacles on offer in the UK – a Black Grouse lek. I was in North Wales with friends and expert bird guides Alan Davies and Ruth Miller and the displaying male Black Grouse were only 20m away….
Little trotty wagtail
The Pied Wagtail roost near my home is still going strong, although slightly less strong than earlier as there are now c200 Pied Wagtails roosting there. At the weekend I made a couple of early morning visits to watch the birds leaving the roost which they did over a period of just over half an…