Ravensroost wood, Wiltshire. For all the effort that I put into it, I can never get successional flowering to work in my garden. Yet here in the woodland, it happens automagically; not just seasonally, but from year to year as well. This time last year, it was the hemp agrimonies that dominated, their clusters of pink-purple flowers festooned with nectaring hoverflies and the occasional white-letter hairstreak butterfly dropping in from the wych elms behind. This year, the hemp agrimony is …
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It was one for sorrow, two for joy in the rhyme of my childhood. It went as far as ten, but never reached thirty-five, so now I’m unsure of my fate. I’ve walked just five minutes from my home, to search for damselflies in the series of small pools that are part of an optimistic flood relief scheme created alongside a local housing estate. As I arrive, the flock of magpies, more than I have ever seen in one place …
Ravensroost wood, Wiltshire Inevitably, it rained. In the summer that has been no summer, on the day of the Wimbledon and European Cup final, the wood sat brooding and silent, caught in a long exhale, even the birds subdued into near silence. There was a tension to the air, a sense of sense of expectation, and I had barely set foot past the gate when the rain began. Desultory stuff, an unambitious but persistent drizzle, the grasses bowing before me, …
A few days ago in Wales, persons unknown took a boat to an island in the centre of the llyn brenig reservoir in Wales and used a chainsaw to fell a new platform erected to encourage Ospreys to breed. The Ospreys, an IUCN red list bird and highly protected in the UK, had in fact just started to breed, and had laid their first egg when their home was destroyed. At the time of writing, the culprits are unknown. But …
Following the path inwards seems unnatural, a step away from light and safety. As the dense canopy of the oaks closes overhead, the ranks of rosebay willowherb and hemp agrimony that line the woodland’s bright outer edges slowly cede ground to bramble and nettle, which in turn fade out as I enter its dark heart, home to little more than spindly grasses and seedling hawthorns who cling on, hoping for a giant above to shed a bough and give them …
I fulfilled a small ambition yesterday. I have for some time tried to find and photograph the Brilliant Emerald dragonfly. It ‘s a Ronseal insect, doing exactly what it says on the tin: it is brilliantly emerald. So, since the weather has finally graced us with something other than rain, I thought I’d give it another go. It’s an acid pool lover, so if you want to see it your options are limited to Scotland, or to a cluster of …
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