In my backyard

Recently the Daily Telegraph reported on windfarm developments in the county where I live – Northamptonshire.  Apparently we are going to become the windfarm capital of the UK although the Telegraph only mentions 53 turbines and suggests the country (presumably England in this case) is considering applications for only 94 in total.  That doesn’t sound…

Clockwork?

The sedge warbler has a stuttering song – it starts – it stops – it starts again – it speeds up – it slows down – it trills – it chatters – it clicks and it churrs. It sounds like a mechanical toy which has been wound up and explodes into song until it runs…

Biggest flock of linnets in Northants?

I have been more than usually aware of the cold weather this week – for several reasons. I had been looking forward to the fact that there was racing at Newbury as I had a friend’s member’s badge as he was in Rome watching the rugby – but Newbury was off because of the weather…

Sometimes it all works out

Yesterday was a cold morning but the air was still and so it didn’t feel bitter on my regular walk around Stanwick Lakes. Great tits, dunnocks, chaffinches and robins were singing in the cold morning air. The lakes in the ex-gravel pits were partly frozen but most had small open areas of water in which…

Little owls – would you miss them?

My American friend who visited recently would have quite liked to have been shown a little owl, and I would have quite liked to have shown him one, but they are dropping out of my life. And if you can’t see a little owl in Northamptonshire then where can you see them, I ask?  The…