Category: ME:

Have you noticed that this blog can cast its spell quite widely? Cambridge haven’t won the Boat Race since they attracted our attention last year (here, here, here, here, here, here and here, here). This year’s performance was particularly dire, wasn’t it. Whereas as soon as Derby City Council renounced their daft ideas to wreck…

It’s the last day of April and I haven’t seen a Swift yet. So I am sitting in the garden looking at the sky.  I’ll tell you tomorrow whether it worked or not.

              The ‘lawn’ has been cut for the first time since the autumn. You can see that this end of the garden is a bit rough and ready.  I think I might have preferred it uncut! I’ve left a strip of unmown grass on one side to participate in…

And so we say farewell to the Cheltenham Festival for another year. Here are some random thoughts: the whole experience was life-enhancing the company of friends is one of the best things in life Margaret’s pie is simply the best Cheltenham racecourse is rather cruel to have a ‘Ladies’ Day’ in early March when some…

All records of Blackcap in my garden are winter records. Here they are: 2005   1 2006   0 2007   0 2008   0 2009   0 2010    6 2011    0 2012   0 2013   11 2014   2 The earliest records are 27 January and the latest 7 April (3 January records, 9 February records, 6 March records, 2 April…

Yesterday evening I was talking to a room full of bright young things – students (mostly) at Oxford and members of the Oxford University Conservation Society. I talked about large and small NGOs (because that’s what they asked me to do) and said that NGOs were like people.  None was wholly good and none was…

I gave a talk in Cheltenham on Monday evening and another in Gloucester on Tuesday evening – so I’ve been largely in Gloucestershire for a while.  Here are a few rather random thoughts: It’s very wet out there! When I head back to Cheltenham in two and a half weeks time I’d be surprised if…

I am suffering from bird deprivation! I’ve seen under 90 species of bird so far this year.  My visit to the Exe Estuary and a boat trip was rained off.  My visit to the north Norfolk coast was rained off. My visit to the Nene Washes was curtailed by the rain. I was so desperate…

A stroll around the floodplain at Exeter on Sunday morning produced two incidents which made me smile and a few additions to the year list. Any spot of birdwatching in January may add a few birds to the growing year list (not a massive priority for me but fun to see the list growing). As…