I’ll be at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Cley Visitor Centre tomorrow morning signing copies of my book, Fighting for Birds, for anyone who wants a copy (or copies – remember Christmas isn’t that far away). I have many happy memories of Cley, but before we get on to them, and how you can help to…
Category: ME:
Flocking to Snettisham
Last Friday I was up early, even for me, so as to be at Snettisham RSPB nature reserve by 0730 to see one of the UK’s finest wildlife spectacles. And I wasn’t alone as the car park was almost full, even at this early hour. There were around 200 of us wrapped up against the…
Working at home and away
Today I am giving a talk at the London Wetland Centre at 230pm – I’m looking forward to it and maybe I’ll see you there. However, I have experienced the joys of working at home this week. One day a nice man brought me a lovely book to read (now, admittedly I had ordered it…
Saturday 2
You do know what day it is don’t you? Yesterday, in rural Bedfordshire, I was passing a field of unharvested beans, where the beans looked brown and crispy. I saw a raptor flying low over the crop and I wondered whether it might just be a marsh harrier so I pulled over and had a…
Flying ants
Last week there was a flock of black-headed gulls above my back garden and much higher there were swifts wheeling around. Both species were feeding on flying ants – so I contributed my observation to the Society of Biology flying ant survey. I wonder how many more of these I will see? This was good…
Sunshine
On Monday the sun was shining and I suddenly thought – why not go and enjoy it? So I did. Summer sun means butterflies and I headed to Fermyn Woods to see if it might be third time lucky in looking for purple emperors. The long line of cars parked by the road on a…
Saturday cutting the lawn
Yesterday may have been summer, so I cut the lawn. Well, I call it a lawn but it was looking more like a small scruffy meadow as the wet weather had been good for grass growth but bad for grass cutting. I noticed there were lots and lots of insects in the grass – and…
A bucolic scene
I just had to take a ‘snap’ (although iPhones make a faint buzz rather than a snap) of these flowers, as I have seen so few this year. Where was I, do you think? Answer at ‘end of day’. Answer: thank you for some good guesses, and some well argued thoughts and near…
Timing
Do you have a bucket list– a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket? I’ve just taken one off my list as I saw a much-wanted species in Abernethy Forest earlier this week. Timing is everything with wildlife isn’t it? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time clearly…
Gone twitching – not really
At the weekend I went on a twitch, looking for a rare bird – except it is just a rarer bird rather than a really rare one. I realised that I didn’t see a spotted flycatcher last year, partly because I was looking at mountain bluebirds instead, and I hadn’t seen one yet this year…