Month: November 2024
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British Wildlife magazine October 2024, tigers, and foxes in Scotland
A necessary use of the Oxford comma in the title there – there are no tigers in Scotland as far as I know. British Wildlife, Volume 36, Number 1 I have been blessed by visits from a Great Spotted Woodpecker this year, on a daily basis for quite some time, two of them at one…
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New Scientist and why some trees lose their leaves
Why deciduous trees lose their leaves for winter is one of those questions to which I thought that I would obviously know the answer, but as I sat in the summerhouse this morning, crossword finished, warm and dry in cold, wet and windy weather, watching the last of the leaves falling from the sumac tree…
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A White-crowned Parrot and other wildlife
A close friend is in the enviable position, in spite of weeks of constant torrential rain, of volunteering at a wildlife rescue in Costa Rica. He has also passed a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course with flying colours. Enchanted by this bird’s visit, he sent me this picture. He noticed that when it…
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Church & State
I have been procrastinating with this post – it is a huge subject and not always easy to write about (nor read – I am not pulling my punches here, supporters of the church and royalists might want to look away). It is a summary of much that I have said before, but I do…
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A Swan, a Badger, a Gyrfalcon, a Fox, and Squirrel and Songbird theatre
A first for me at HART Wildlife Rescue this week. Whilst others worked inside with the hedgehogs, I was assigned the Collared and Stock Doves and Feral Pigeons outside, which I am used to, and a Mute Swan, which I am not. The columbines flapped about a fair bit in the aviary but soon calmed…
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Sett survey November 24 with many fungi
This was our most outright enjoyable survey for some time with quite the profusion of wildlife, overshadowed only by the knowledge that the area (not far from me) is commonly and currently used for hare coursing, which is of course illegal. Just the day before a woman had remonstrated with a perpetrator from her window.…
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Rewild the Church (and I Love Yew)
Yesterday evening I spent an hour and a half attending a webinar hosted by Wild Card, “a grassroots movement challenging Britain’s biggest landowners to rewild their land before it’s too late.” They are in co-operation on this issue with the campaign group 38 Degrees. 50% of our land is owned by less than 1% of…
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Even more fungi, the Tree Register and a not so welcome presence in my hair
A leisurely two and a half mile walk through Bowdown Woods this time, a BBOWT reserve which is surprisingly situated not far from Newbury and Thatcham, Berkshire and close to a road (although not the way my satnav tortuously sent me, through a long line of industrial estates). I saw all of two other people…
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Nuthatch!
There is a wonderful constant flurry of Blue Tits, Great Tits (they are very vocal this morning) and Sparrows at my feeders and a regular Great Spotted Woodpecker. I have seen a Nuthatch before, but never in my garden. I have gently (I hope) poked fun at certain twitchers and their adrenalin rushes and sleepless…
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Wildpilot. Car breakdown recovery
Avoid. I have already posted this to Trustpilot. I have had premium cover for several years and after a serious tyre blowout on a very busy main road, I called them for the first time, from a layby. I was told they have no mechanics at all and only ever offer a tow but not…