My annual encounter of the year award 2024. What species wins the prize?

questionmark

I’ve renamed this annual round-up as ‘Encounter of the year’ because my emphasis these days is less about photography and more about appreciating the plants, birds and animals that Britain has for what they are. There were times in 2024 when I thought my year would be a blank sheet of paper. It could so easily be called the ‘year with no summer’, or perhaps the ‘year with too much weather’.   I have a garden filled with nectar-bearing flowers, but

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The gender-bending peerie deuck

red-necked phalarope

I’ve just returned from a couple of weeks on the Shetland Islands. Lying in deep waters a 12-hour ferry ride from Aberdeen, these islands are the most northerly outpost of Britain, closer to Norway and Iceland than they are to London. Their isolation, and the food-rich waters that surround them, mean that they are a wildlife haven, home to Europe’s greatest population of otters, as well as mountain hares, seals, visiting killer whales, and thousands of seabirds, as well as

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