The red-breasted merganser is something of a boogie bird for me. One of those species that I’ve tried to see, but only glimpsed. Which is a shame, because it’s a fascinating creature. To begin with, there is something about its name: ‘Merganser’. I have no idea why, but to me it feels like something out of Tolkien, or RR Martin, a creature of fable, the kind illustrated in medieval bestiaries by assembling parts of different animals and topping them with …
Category: Birds
I went to the seaside. In February. What can I say? It’s as close as staid old age gets to rebellion. I can’t ride a Harley with a horned helmet, so I go to the sea in February. And no, I didn’t go in. I mean: I’m rebellious, but I’m not suicidal. I was there to meet some of the birdlife that uses Britain as its temporary home. A surprising amount of wildlife does. Many flying species we think of …
I was at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Slimbridge reserve recently. It was near high tide on the river Severn, and the whole landscape (which had been bone-dry in the summer) was saturated from torrential rain over several days. As a result, the fields of the reserve are teeming with wildlife. Imagine those films you’ve seen on the BBC of the plains of Africa, full of wildebeest. Now turn them into vast, uncountable numbers of birds. Sitting in one of …
It is definitely supposed to be winter. Christmas is only just past. A couple of years back we were knee-deep in snow on this same week. But the current high temperatures here in the South of the UK mean that some of our wildlife thinks that spring is on the way. And that can cause some serious problems if the predicted cold snap arrives. I recently visited Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire. You’ve probably heard of it as a military training …
At the start of every year, I like to look back over my wildlife highlights of the year just gone. With the final release of Covid restrictions, it’s been a year in which I’ve achieved several personal wildlife goals. I’ve seen and photographed every British butterfly, damselfly, and dragonfly, as well as a third of the British list of birds. I’ve taken 33,000 photographs, travelled uncounted miles, and seen 65 species that I’ve never seen before. So what should be …
Recently I was in the Wiltshire riverside town of Bradford-on-Avon. It’s a pleasant place to visit, and I can recommend it, but I was there not the see the town’s attractions, but rather a rare visitor to our shores, a bird called a ‘dusky warbler’. Despite breeding in the Taiga of Eastern Russia and the palearctic, this diminutive little bird – smaller than a sparrow, bigger than a wren – migrates substantial distances south to overwinter in South and Southeast …
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