Category: Uncategorized
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Desert Solitaire, Part II and A Journey through the Badlands, Part I
Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, a Season in the Wilderness, William Collins, 2020 (first published 1968). I continue to be utterly enthralled by this book. Abbey points out that just as with porcupines, deer are over proliferating thanks to human meddling in the form of the removal of apex predators, which is exactly the problem we…
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Minerals and Fossils
Both have been a lifelong attraction and source of fascination for me – in another lifetime I might well have studied geology. Above is a piece of quartz which I acquired from the shop at Charles Darwin’s house. I used the photo in Animal Wild. The geode from Morocco which I acquired from Lulworth Cove…
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Horse racing, Camp Beagle, factory farming and pet food, the shooting industry, a little retail therapy and a bird of prey centre, Naked Paper, AI and communicating with animals
I liked the gentle contrast between the Cloud Grass stems and the pub table in the photo above. Usually I have just one post in draft at a time but right now I have four and am feeling slightly overwhelmed. As I keep saying, the Lateral podcast sends me off on tangents. Perhaps I should…
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Jigsaw Puzzles and Two Countries Divided by the Same Language
My earliest memory of a (non-interlocking) jigsaw puzzle is of one my father brought back from one of his annual business trips to America. The pieces, one for each state of the USA, in primary colours, nestled satisfyingly alongside each other. My brother and I used to complete it over and over again and this…
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Blackbirds catch fish, Rescue not Retail, Dairy, Animal “Petting”, Another Dog Problem, Lead Shot, Storm Damage, Music on Trains, the “Craic”, Amusing Alphabets and the Most Photographed Man Ever
Blackbirds have been recorded catching fish to feed their young – mostly Sticklebacks, also Minnows and in one case a small Rainbow Trout. Comments from the link below say that they also take tadpoles and froglets. How resourceful. Blackbirds recorded catching fish to feed their young – BirdGuides The image above must be by one…
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Desert Solitaire. Part I
Photo: “Delicate Arch, Arches National Park” by Robbie Shadeis licensed under CC BY 2.0. It’s a wonderful photograph. Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, a Season in the Wilderness, was first published in 1968. For more on Abbey, see Alice’s Meadow, Thunderstone, Edward Abbey, Jim Dodge – Animal Wild. The Arches National Monument where Abbey lived and…
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The Three Big Lies about Animals in the UK. The Elements (The Periodic Table). Part III
I cannot but briefly go over the three big lies yet again given their currency. Of course there are many others (such as that animal experiments are in any way useful or beneficial) but only last night I saw the notorious RSPCA tv advert. Although a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority was not upheld…
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The Elements (The Periodic Table). Part II. Including Parker and other pens, nuclear fission and our terrible railway network
Kean (Sam). The Disappearing Spoon and other true tales from the Periodic Table, Black Swan, 2011. The colourful table above is taken from ExplorersInternational. This wonderful website, List – Periodic Table, goes much further – you can click on any element to see a wealth of information: applications, properties, isotopes, emission spectra, flame test colours,…
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Lichens, Badgers, the Amur Tiger, Turpitude, Sewage, Elephant Polo, Razorbills and Guillemots and the Handwriting Rebel
A short sunny walk yesterday was enlivened by this Oakmoss Lichen, above, and lichen community (four species, apparently), below. Also this crust fungus. I thought this dead sprig of holly was also strangely beautiful. The walk was enlivened a great deal more by a surprising discovery. The footpath is very close to home (for obvious…
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Seaweed, Feral cats in Australia, America, Dr Dolittle and the Bullfight and Ozzy Man Reviews
Seaweed I am not sure why I was thinking about seaweed although it somehow evokes happy childhood memories. My brother and I used to collect the odd frond and take it home where it would desiccate and eventually fall apart. Who knew of the crime we were committing? I would now live rigidly by the…
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The Elements (The Periodic Table). Part I
Kean (Sam). The Disappearing Spoon and other true tales from the Periodic Table, Black Swan, 2011. My first thought when this book arrived was that the author might have missed a trick by failing to reference The Matrix, to my mind one of the greatest films ever produced. “There is no spoon” is a crucial…
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Just a few more close-ups
I spotted this at the foot of dead tree stump in a pub garden. Apparently it’s a young bracket fungus or a basal decay fungus releasing spores, fed by the decaying wood. Sadly a dead Red Admiral and a bee but they did give me the chance to take these. Virburnum Meanwhile the Ivy is…
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Badgers, 1,000 plants and more from Nancy Campbell
A stellar newsletter from the Binfield Badger Group this month. The photo on the cover bears the stark reminder “254,038 badgers have been killed” – all to no purpose whatsoever. No one is held accountable and no doubt no one ever will be. More brightly, two stalwarts of the group created the character of Professor…
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Unusual binomials, empty nests, cheerleading, the Dragon Lady, Diana
I continue to enjoy the podcast Lateral, hosted by Tom Scott, an immensely likeable, unashamed and self-confessed nerd. One of the questions requiring lateral thinking was about the connection between Tyrannosaurs Rex and a Boa Constrictor. They seem to be the only two animals whose common names and Linnaean binomials are the same, so it’s…
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More macro, PETA news and Cats & Art
I haven’t quite emulated the gorgeous Wild Chicory photos which inspired me, (Blue dancers | absolutelynotnormal), but I am pleased with these nonetheless. A bit more sunlight would have made the blues of the petals and stamens contrast more strongly. I took these yesterday during my walk with Chilli the Norfolk Terrier for the Cinnamon…
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The Blackcap is back, macro photography and a lunch
I heard the Blackcap in the garden again yesterday morning. Again it quickly flew away but this time I had a clear sight of him and was able to visually confirm the species. He definitely has a favourite bush from which to call. Inspired by photographs way superior to mine of Wild Chicory on a…
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A Sparrowhawk, BTO News, 1,000 Shades of Green and the royal family and slavery again
The image above is from Meyer (Henry Leonard). Illustrations of British Birds, c.1835-1844. It seems the name changed to just a single word relatively recently. A male Sparrowhawk in the garden yesterday. I caught only a fleeting glimpse as usual but I am confident in my identification. It came from the direction of the bird…
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Kelmscott Manor and all that
I have been thinking of visiting for a while and when a friend mentioned it a couple of days ago I decided to go yesterday – it’s less than an hour away by car. I am not sorry I did but it is a very strange place. On the way I noticed signposts to villages…
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Pippa Middleton’s driveway – the verdict
September 14th was a sad and depressing day for the village, for The Ramblers Association and for anyone who holds out hope for a Right to Roam in England. K. Taylor of the Planning Inspectorate published his report on the inquiry into the path/driveway (the Order route) forming part of Barton Court, the estate owned…
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The Devil’s Garden
The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi, Bloomsbury Wildlife, 2026, by Peter Marren. See here for one of his contributions to British Wildlife magazine: A graduation, garden wildlife, British Wildlife Magazine and a tribute to Willmie Jalius – Animal Wild The author is my type of gardener – let things be and…
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Alice’s Meadow, Thunderstone, Edward Abbey, Jim Dodge
Above is one of John Tenniel’s illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. “For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all directions over the country—and a most curious country it was. There were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side to side,…
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Howl! Thames Water – and Wolves
A howl of protest, with apologies to Allen Ginsberg. I doubt he would mind as he was a relentless campaigner for environmental and social justice (I had quite a long infatuation with the Beat Generation when I was in my late teens). I have just received correspondence from Thames Water insisting that I allow them…
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Binsey Poplars, Collared Doves, Washing Machine Politics and Defensive Defecation
The Fieldfare image above is from Meyer (Henry Leonard). Illustrations of British Birds, c.1835-1844. Each day, which is every day, when I see my ruined Lime Tree, I feel guilty and apologetic (I do actually silently apologise), even though the butchery was carried out, in my garden, without my permission and in my absence. I…
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Magpies, Gulls, Sheep, animals and the media
Magpies will stop stealing from bird feeders if you place one simple object in the garden This piece from the Daily Express is just the kind of lazy, sensationalist, clickbait journalism about wildlife that drives me up the wall. If it’s not corvids, it’s Squirrels, Red Kites, Foxes, Gulls, Adders or Ragwort being demonised. It…
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Pippa’s Ugly Car Park, Bearskin Caps and a Stag Beetle
A.A. Gill, old age, the Space Race I am reading A. A. Gill’s A.A. Gill Is Further Away helping with enquiries, and I will come back to it here, meanwhile the scintillating prose, the breadth of knowledge and subject matter enthral me. I find myself ensnared and arrested by brilliant observations of the mundane, for…
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Water, Big Pharma, and Airplane and Grouse Shooting industry scandals; British Wildlife Magazine
Water I feel have written more than sufficient about our pollution for profit water companies and Thames Water in particular, but it beggars belief that even now there is a fresh scandal. Thames Water’s £1m payout to finance chief is ‘unacceptable’, says government department | Thames Water | The Guardian Thames Water and others are…
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Farming, factory farming, salmon farming and British Wildlife magazine
I thought the local Swifts might have left by now but I was transfixed by about thirty of them high in the sky yesterday evening when I stepped outside. The Jackdaws are very much back although in smaller numbers, so are half a dozen Blue Tits (where have they been meanwhile?) and I can still…
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99%, the eclipse, a beautiful moth and BTO news
This beauty is I now know a Hummingbird Hawk-moth in the summerhouse this morning, so named for the ability to hover like a Hummingbird over flowers to get nectar. They are extremely loud. I confess to using AI to sharpen the image – my photos of moths always look fuzzy which I thought was down…
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Dogs, Badgers, Starfish, Parrots and the RSPB
I have updated the most recent of my posts complaining about how some people allow their dogs to behave in pubs to include a list of some of the pathogens which can easily be transferred to humans. It is pretty shocking – there are far more than I realised and the effects can be very…
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Chichester
I had been looking forward to my visit on Tuesday and it was a good day although a planned visit to RSPB Medmerry was thwarted by a sudden change in the weather. Chichester is a lovely place but like so many others is blighted by the number of boarded up shops, testament to the inevitable…
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The Guga hunt, the mutilation of a tree, farmyards and rights of way, A.A. Gill on parenthood, a crossword, that tv show, a bracelet and Dr Dolittle
Guga hunt Firstly some seriously good news, the Guga hunt licence for next year has not been granted. As a spokesperson for Protect the Wild says: “A major victory for compassion, for science and for common sense.” BBC Evening News Covers Guga Hunt Victory! This will be the first time in perhaps 400 years that…
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Thistles, a lily, ceramics, a candle, A.A. Gill on sport, and some tv
I’ve posted a photo of these Globe Thistles before but they keep catching my eye in the garden. The bees and butterflies love them and the umbellifers. The other variety of Globe Thistle below is just starting to show its lovely bluish purple hue. There is a rose bush in the garden but the truth…
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Birdwatch x 3
The stack of wildlife magazines waiting to be read has been growing alarmingly. To try and tackle it this is a look at three issues of Birdwatch magazine, June, July and August 2026, issues 408 to 410. Firstly though an encouraging update on the Guga hunt. Experts at NatureScot have recommended that no licence be…
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Gannets, Dogs, Chris Packham, Bill Oddie, Sperm Whales, A.A. Gill, Lawyers for Animals and a couple of life’s irritations
This photograph of a Gannet was taken in Cardigan Bay a few years ago and was used in Animal Wild. See below for updates on the Guga hunt. Dogs and their ‘owners’ Firstly though, dog ‘owners’ again. It’s always the owners. I have written previously about one in particular. Inbreeding can be an unfortunate accident…
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Lost rainforests
This wonderful display of Globe Thistles and Queen Anne’s Lace was a complete surprise in the garden this morning. I think they make a great combination and are much more splendid and interesting than any number of fancy cultivars. A lot has been happening. I remained as oblivious as I could to the football. Andy…
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A graduation, garden wildlife, British Wildlife Magazine and a tribute to Willmie Jalius
This was a beautiful Father’s Day gift from one of my daughters. The flowers are local to Liverpool where she has been at university. This week we attended her graduation at the beautiful home of the Liverpool Philharmonic, which was wonderful, full of pomp and ceremony, provoking that mix of tears and deep parental pride.…
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Wildlife in South Devon Days 3 and 4
Appealing to my enjoyment of words and wordplay, I have had look into some of the abbreviations and nicknames used by serious ornithologists and there’s a list of some of them here, some more pleasing than others. Birdwatching, Birding & Bird Travel, Birdfood & Binoculars Bird Nicknames & Abbreviations – Fat Birder In my head…
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Wildlife in South Devon Day 2, part II
Our next stop was the RSPB’s Labrador Bay Nature reserve on the clifftops. As hoped we were treated to Cirl Buntings, male and female (another first for me), many interesting plants with weird and wonderful names and spectacular views. Also we heard Skylarks and a Greenfinch. Rita and I saw a butterfly not seen elsewhere…
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Wildlife in South Devon Day 2, part I
Dolphins have been especially close to my heart for years for all sorts of reasons, including personal ones, and not least because of their sheer grace and power. So the boat trip in the hope of seeing even just one was always going to be the highlight of the trip for me. Firstly though a…
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Wildlife in South Devon Day I
This is my fourth trip with Wildlife Worldwide and they have all been terrific and very different from one another. Our leader was Mike Dilger, perhaps best known for his appearances on The One Show, also an author and expert on birds, dragonflies, damselflies and more, especially plants – his degree was in botany. I…
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David Hockney and George Lawson
David Hockney needs no introduction. I have always loved his work and had the pleasure of meeting him briefly a couple of times. When my brother was at an exhibition at the Tate Gallery Hockney suggested they go outside together and have a cigarette on the steps. A coachload of Japanese tourists pulled up and…
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An Otter
The illustration above is from: Thorburn (Archibald). British Mammals. Two volumes. Longmans, Green & Co., 1920-1921. Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story Channel 4 summarises this programme: “Poignantly uplifting documentary about Billy Mail, who moved to Shetland with his wife for a better life only to find melancholic isolation. Then an otter pup comes…
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A Deer Sanctuary, Geezer Butler and the Ridglan Beagles, the Badger Cull, Fire Kites
I posted this in December last year: Finally news from my favourite animal rescue, Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk (passim). Ten acres of unprotected woodland were up for sale by auction nearby and could have been purchased by developers. Hillside drew deeply on their reserve funds and stepped in. The land will be fenced to…
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Cosmos, Contact, Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan has long been a hero of mine. It just occurred to me that Brian Cox is a modern-day version and indeed Cox has said that Sagan’s TV series Cosmos changed his life, inspiring him to dedicate it to science. Another hero, Richard Dawkins, is quoted as saying that he wishes he had written…
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Lime Quarry
My membership of the local wildlife group is lapsed but they kindly allowed me to join them yesterday on a visit to a disused lime quarry, now a chalk grassland nature reserve. I will be renewing my membership – it was a glorious and rewarding afternoon. The nearby cottages are the Lime Kiln Cottages and…
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The Birds and the Bees – a little bit more
Yesterday seems to me worthy of being thought of as Fledgling Day. But this morning has not disappointed either. I was up at first light and the Grey Squirrel, Dunnocks, the ever present Jackdaws and the almost worryingly plump Robin below all put in early appearances. First of all though was this juvenile Great Spotted…
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The Birds and the Bees
Having seen the first fledgling Blue Tit of the year at the feeder, a small Cinnabar Moth with his or her stunning, bright red wings and a second Beautiful Demoiselle, I have had a few absolutely bumper days for wildlife at home. There is a bees’ nest in the roof of an outbuilding, I am…
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Beauty of the Beasts
Beauty of the Beasts, rethinking nature’s least loved animals by Jo Wimpenny, Bloomsbury Wildlife, 2026. The author has an easy, down to earth style which makes this fascinating and thought-provoking book a real pleasure. She is right in her preface I think to say that many of us who care about wildlife live in something…
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Feeding the birds, Global Justice, battery cows, and British Wildlife Magazine
I knew this was a laurel in the garden but AI tells me it is a Portuguese Laurel or an English / Cherry Laurel depending on which version you believe. Either way the cascades of pretty white flowers are apparently known as racemes. I think this is the first year it has flowered. Feeding the…
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A mouse, snakes, bulls, penguins, palm oil, cows, dogs, bears, fossil fuels, and the Danish numbering system
A mouse Emptying one of the water tubs I use for solar irrigation of various pots in the garden, sadly I found a drowned mouse. I left it on the ground intending to come back, pick it up with a recyclable plastic bag and put it in the dustbin. Soon after there was that horrible,…
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Lost Paths, part III
The Lost Paths, a History of How We Walk from Here to There, by Jack Cornish, Penguin Books, 2025 (first published 2024). Firstly and not entirely tangentially, I posted this in June 2024: Rural vandalism near me – Animal Wild I gave this account of one individual’s taking of liberties: “Just across the railway line,…
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Sewage, drones, a Buzzard and that footpath inquiry
Above, Red Valerian, Centranthus ruber, at home – a very tough plant that can grow pretty much anywhere – even from walls and paving cracks – and which is a magnet for pollinators. It doesn’t look very red to me. Sewage An update on the sewage protest which I attended at the weekend, Sewage protest,…
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Lost Paths, part II
The Lost Paths, a History of How We Walk from Here to There, by Jack Cornish, Penguin Books, 2025 (first published 2024). I am delighted to see now that the fox on the front cover appears on the spine of the book as well. The buttercup and clarkia (I think) photos from the garden are…
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Sewage protest, Thomas Hardy’s sundial
A little bit of admin. I have been becoming increasingly frustrated with WordPress hanging and being unable to save my posts which have invoved a lot of rewriting. The online AI help remains worse than useless and itself simply crashes but it did recommend switching to Chrome, which I have now done, since MS Edge…
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A footpath: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
The first Oxeye Daisy has flowered in the garden today with others seeming impatient to do the same. An annual joy. A footpath … or not? Footpaths and right of way certainly seem to be a theme at the moment (see Lost Paths, part I – Animal Wild). As has been prominently reported in the…
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Animal Wrongs, Surds and Sophie Orde-MccGwire
Yet again the fern above has arisen like a phoenix as it does every year, seemingly lusher and more brightly green than ever. “Animal Wrongs” refers back to the book which kick-started my collection of books and other material relating to animal rights and I gave an account of buying it in Animal Trust: “My…
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Dorset
My favourite English county, Northumberland running a close second. Friends had invited me to stay for the weekend at their gorgeous house in Swanage, a place full of happy student memories for me. It is right on the point, the sea just a few feet away. I remembered that the nearby Wellington Clock Tower (1854)…
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Lost Paths, part I
The Lost Paths, a History of How We Walk from Here to There, by Jack Cornish, Penguin Books, 2025 (first published 2024). I am loving this book. It didn’t take long to win me over, no longer in fact than the realisation that the author is director of England (and formerly head of paths) at…
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Birds, Greenpeace, Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Snoopy
Before moving on to more pleasant matters, a quick follow-up on yesterday’s post about the Green Party, Zack Polanski and the right-wing media’s traducing of him. I have since come across two more disgraceful interviews, one by Mandelson’s friend Trevor Phillips and one by Laura Kuenssberg. Far worse than either is the cartoon which appeared…
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The Green Party
I have generally and perhaps timidly tended to avoid some of the most controversial issues of our times and indeed politics generally in this blog, making exceptions for Trump and Starmer and his nature hating government and their lies. Now with the elections two days away I am screwing my courage to the sticking plate,…