Month: October 2025
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Ivy flowers, WordPress nags, a canal journalist, chuckwallahs, Wild Justice, planning, autumn leaves, penguins in prison, a butterfly healer, Hamza Yassin, Hitchens and Fry on the Catholic church, and first fungi of the year
I have often read that ivy is a superb food source for pollinators late in the year but never really witnessed it. But the ivy in the garden this year is absolutely bursting with flowers and literally abuzz with insect life. I think these are mostly hoverflies. There was a white-tailed bee too. I haven’t…
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Savernake Forest: fungi, lots of fungi and a Treecreeper
Savernake Forest, just outside Marlborough, Wiltshire, is privately owned and seems very well looked after for its wildlife, in spite of its being managed by Forestry England. The Marquess of Allesbury and his son the Earl of Cardigan are the owners. It has SSSI status for the diversity and in particular ancient oak trees and…
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Boris, Spider Webs, Country Music, Fungi and the Animal Cruelty Prism
Heathcote Williams’ book about Boris Johnson duly arrived. Rather than Boris Johnson: The Beast of Brexit – A Study in Depravity, 2019, which was what had attracted me, I have instead the earlier Brexit Boris, from Mayor to Nightmare, Public Reading Rooms, 2016. I tired of it pretty quickly – too much has already been…
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Royal Babylon and an accounting error
As mentioned in my previous post, I purchased Heathcote Williams’ Royal Babylon; the Case Against the Monarchy. The only way to do so without too much expense was through Google Play Books. Very unsatisfactory – none of the pleasure of an actual book and none of the advantages of, for example, a Kindle version. It…
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Tolkien and cars and Heathcote Williams, Badgers, Reggae, Cranes, Michael Palin in Venezuela, Eating Swans, Sparrows, Deer, a Butterfly, Elephants, Parakeets and Zack Polanski
Badger survey A good day on Sunday. Firstly a badger sett survey in the Arborfield area. We didn’t find a sett but there are definitely badgers about, as evidenced by hairs found on wire fencing (our ace finder of such things always dives down when he sees a push-through) and what was almost certainly a…
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Return to Farmoor, Ragwort, Slang, Starmer and Digital ID, RSPB Magazine
I much enjoyed my first visit to Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire at the beginning of the year: Farmoor Reservoir – Animal Wild I planned to return and having acquired an electric bike in the interim much looked forward to cycling round, easily covering the distance so that I could be where the birds were. Thames…
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R.I.P. Dr Jane Goodall
A ground breaking advocate for animals – and people. Gentle, compassionate, kind, wise. A great loss to the world. But her voice and her spirit live on. “The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.”