Night on a working farm is not quite completely quiet or completely dark. The surrounding fields are cloaked in darkness and the sky above is filled with stars. Across this nightscape we hear the ‘seep’ of calling redwing, returning for the winter. Tall buildings loom out of the black, their angular lines and features illuminated … More The Owl of Athena
The afternoon sun was low in a blue sky with just a few wisps of white cloud. Sunbeams slanted through the trees and bushes, turning the tops of the reeds, heavy with seeds, golden yellow. It was the last weekend in September and with the final early start at our reed bed site the following … More Pretty in Pink
It felt like history repeating, and I had an ominous feeling of de ja vu. It is mid-September and the first storms of the autumn are sweeping across the Atlantic heading for the UK and Ireland, and once again I am heading out on the ferry to Santander across the Bay of Biscay with the … More Changeable Bay
Night has come to the island. Although the darkness is not absolute and will only last for a brief couple of hours at this time of year. The skies overhead are for once still. It is eerie not to see it filled with racing puffins, marauding gulls and pirating skuas. All are settled for the … More Little Sea Dancers
They are known as the ‘clowns of the sea’ and are one of the UK’s favourite birds. Instantly recognisable with their formal black and white ‘dinner jacket’ plumage, bright orange feet, and colourful orangey red bill. The blackish grey skin that forms a triangle shape round the eye gives them an appearance of wearing makeup … More Little Brothers of the North
On the sheer cliffs and geos of Sule Skerry there are hundreds of guillemots. The rocks are white with their guano as the birds perch on precarious ledges overlooking sheer drops into the churning water below. Sitting near a colony is an assault on the senses. Everywhere you look there are hundreds of these dark … More Guillies and Razors
Across the top and down the steep slopes of the southwestern geo on Sule Skerry is a bustling gannet colony. The harsh grating calls of the adult birds is a continuous noise. Years ago, when monitoring of seabirds started on the island in the 1970s there were no gannets nesting. When they first started breeding … More Gannets of Sule Skerry
We had returned to the house from a bygone era where only a few weeks ago we had been delighted with a family of barn owls. On that day, once we had finished processing and ringing the owls, we had wandered over to check a number of other bird boxes erected in the surrounding trees. … More A kestrel surprise
Minsmere: 1,000 hectares of nature reserve managed by the Royal Society for Protection of Birds. A mosaic of habitats from woodland and open grassland which gently slopes to extensive areas of rustling reed beds and marsh, opening out into pools and shallow coastal lagoons with exposed areas of mud, to a shingle beach onto which … More Minsmere
The river moves slowly, its dark surface broken by the occasional ripples, swirls and eddies created by the unseen current. Trees, in full brilliantly green foliage, stand on its banks shading the water, their leaves trailing and branches creating a tangled trap for any debris floating by. On the near bank stinging nettles and grasses … More The Not So Ugly Ducklings
Wild Barley 