It’s the thing that everyone is noticing but nobody is talking about. Where have all the bees gone? I have a small garden, full of bee-friendly flowers. Two years ago my plants had so many bees on them that the very air seemed to vibrate. Yesterday I spent three hours working in my garden. I saw four bees. Four. And it’s not just me. Up and down the country people have been saying the same thing to me. Try it …
Blog Posts
I spend a lot of time looking for wildlife. It’s a sad commentary on the state of Britain’s depleted nature that I have to go searching for it. Species common in my grandparent’s day have nowadays become an exciting find. But occasionally, just occasionally, the nature comes to you, as happened on a trip to Dorest’s Studland beach recently. I love Studland. The miles of white sand and clear swimming waters make a happy place for my wife, and the …
There are species that appear… I don’t know. Slightly smug, perhaps? The ones that are good-looking and know it. Take the Arctic tern. Exquisitely-designed global wanderer, it has the sleek, graceful lines and curves of a supermodel. It’s a creature that knows you’ll hang its picture on your wall. Then there are those creatures, no less superbly designed, who leave you wondering what accident befell them when they were born. The slug. The lumpfish. Those strange species that only a …
It felt like a church service. A small group of a dozen people, strung out along a length of drystone wall, staring at a field. At first, there was talk. Hushed, low tones, respectful. The late afternoon sun came and went behind a screen of clouds, and on this mid-April day, and coats were zipped and unzipped as the temperature went from warm to cool and back again. From a small stand of hawthorns, birdsong trickled out – a charm …
It took me a while to realise it, but it’s not just animals and plants that breathe. Countries do, too. For people, there are the annual holiday periods, when they jet off on holidays or travel the country to reunite with loved ones, vast flows of humanity moving around, all at the same time, and the majority for some reason settling on the M5. But for our birdlife, there are the spring and autumn migrations. Those areas far to the …
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 last week. It was reporting on the Poole Harbour oil spill. It seems that the mixture of oil and water from that spill now risks running into Studland Bay, the most globally-important breeding area for spiny seahorses. The what? I know. It surprised me, too. I’m a naturalist and I take an active interest in all British wildlife, and even so I was only vaguely aware that seahorses live in Britain. I’ve watched …
Social Profiles