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A pleasant walk today, in which my old friend the Kingfisher popped up very close to me while I was taking a brief rest from my daily walk. I was happy to see him, especially as he sat still long enough for this photo. I was puzzled for a while by what seemed to be patchy fog, in the middle of a hot and sunny afternoon. It turned out to be the downy seeds of the willow tree – the …

Today’s walk was a joy. Partly because I’m now regularly seeing a kingfisher, one of two pairs that are local to me. I searched for kingfishers for many years before I realised that they are actually to be found near my home, on the same lake where the grebes hang out. I strongly suspect that they are nesting, which means that I have to be extremely careful not to inadvertently disturb them close to the nest – it’s an offence, …

For someone who loves the outdoors, Lockdown is a trial. But it’s a small price to pay to save the lives of others. As the situation has gone on, I am starting to learn from friends that their loved ones have died. It’s a tide, gradually getting closer to home, and inconvenience is a small price to pay. But I am fortunate to have a number of really wonderful walks I can take. Today’s was around my local lake. The …

Let me be clear –  I am NOT saying that Coronavirus is a good thing. But it does offer us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to find out what the world would be like if we stepped back. I woke this morning to a dawn chorus that seemed exceptionally loud and detailed, full of notes and tones I can’t recall hearing before. And then the penny dropped. Those sounds had always been there, but they were normally drowned out by the sound …

This time last year, the large lake near my home had five great crested grebes on it. Four formed pairs, one of which successfully raised young. A smaller local lake had one pair on it, which also raised young. The same was true for most of the lakes I could reach in a hour’s drive from my home. This year, my local lake has one solitary, despondent grebe. The smaller lake has none. I’ve walked five local lakes, and there …

I care more about elephants than I do about pigeons. As a naturalist that feels wrong, but it’s a fact. It’s a natural tendency to be more interested in the things that are exotic than those which we see every day. Elephants bring images of far-off lands. They are unusual, something outside the run of the everyday. But not every rare or exotic animal lives far away. For several years now I’ve been tracking down an animal which lives only …