As the drought extends in the south of Britain, give a thought to all of our wildlife – from bees to birds and all points in between – who cannot simply turn on a tap and get a drink when they need it. As honeydew and nectar dry up on our trees and flowers, and natural ponds bake into concrete, much of our wildlife is struggling. But there is something that you can do to help. Now is the time …
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I recently returned from Scotland, having fulfilled a five-year quest to photograph all of Britain’s native breeding butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies. Despite some truly atrocious weather I brought back the precious final pictures of the elusive northern species – the northern damselfly, the northern emerald dragonfly and the azure hawker dragonfly. I also brought back a bad case of Covid-19, which, being a generous type, I promptly gave to my wife. As you can imagine, nipping off for a private …
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote her classic book ‘Silent Spring’. In it, she described the impact of the pesticide DDT, which was killing wildlife throughout the food chain, but especially silencing the birds whose song she heard every spring. The book caused enough shock that DDT was eventually banned almost everywhere. But Rachel lived in more innocent times. Since the 1960’s, things that were once unthinkable are now routine, and every time we think nothing could get worse, we are proven …
The leaf twitches. There are plenty of moving leaves in this thicket just a few yards from my home. A dense jungle of ivy and bramble, cow parsley, willowherb and fallen branches that adorns the bases of some tall ash trees, it’s alive with movement from a gusting breeze that is moving occasional teased-out-cotton clouds above me and bringing the temperature down from hot to mild. The flat white flower heads of the cow parsley jiggle, the ivy leaves flutter. …
Not my words, and in early example of how easily truth can become distorted, nobody really knows who invented them. But they ring as true today as ever. I try to stay out of politics, but I can’t stay out of humanity. Our generation has a lot to answer for: global warming. Plastic pollution. Knight Rider and people eating kangaroo testicles as entertainment. But the one judgement that will be written about long after we are all dead is that …
Our (almost) daily walk around our local lake produced a variety of sights today. The blackthorn blossom has come and even starts to be going, as drifts of small white petals start to accumulate beneath the bushes which are coated in stem-bending swatches of blooms in what paint manufacturers would call “white with a hint of pink”. The nettles have suddenly erupted, small serrated leaves on stalks already five inches high. In the woodland, the long beard-shaped leaves of arum …
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