It was St Paul who warned us that we might meet Angels unawares. I certainly wasn’t expecting my encounter, which happened a long time ago when I was a countryside warden. Being a countryside warden wasn’t always as idyllic a job as you might think. I reckoned that I spent a good quarter of myContinue reading “Angels unawares”
Category Archives: Nature writing
The north wind doth blow ….
I’d only seen a Waxwing a handful of times before and then only a fleeting glimpse, a dark shape silhouetted in a winter’s dusk. A few of these exquisite birds arrive in Britain every winter and every few years they grace us with a “Waxwing Winter” when they arrive in their hundreds but, either way,Continue reading “The north wind doth blow ….”
White and wild
Back in 2013, I realised an ambition and finally made a pilgrimage to a North East relic that I’ve been meaning to see for years. In fact I made two such pilgrimages that year. The first was to Durham to see the Lindisfarne Gospels which were on loan there from the British Library for threeContinue reading “White and wild”
Away with the fairies
I had always regarded a trip to Middlesbrough as being a bit like a visit to the dentist, you dread the thought of it but it usually turns out not quite as bad as you expected. More recently though, thanks mainly to my wife’s ardent defence, I’ve seen a different side to “The Boro’”. AddedContinue reading “Away with the fairies”
March Madness
There are two types of animal. There are the real ones that share the world with us and then there are the ones that live in our heads. The problem is in knowing where one ends and the other begins. Ever since cavemen drew animals on walls and probably long before then as well, peopleContinue reading “March Madness”
Shades of Grey
Blame it on our island mentality, but this country seems always to have had a somewhat ambiguous relationship with foreigners. It is probably no surprise then to learn that for a sizeable number of people in this country there is a long-standing campaign to get rid of some unwelcome Americans. Not that this should riskContinue reading “Shades of Grey”
To see a thousand things – December
Well that felt like the quickest year of my life; perhaps seeming even quicker for documenting it on a monthly basis. December was a good month for my list with the addition of over 50 species, though most of them were technically not new species. Instead they were ones that I had just got roundContinue reading “To see a thousand things – December”
To see a thousand things – November
The poet Thomas Hood has beaten me to my blog this month. His poem, “No!”, ends with the stanza; “No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!” That was pretty much it for November. I found two new plants, though neither was a flower, and added anotherContinue reading “To see a thousand things – November”
The Lost World
“Last Chance to See”, the Hartlepool countryside events programme said, shamelessly plagiarising Douglas Adams. It did the trick though, as some two dozen people turned up for the advertised five-mile walk, hoping for a glimpse, perhaps their first, or maybe their last, of a Red Squirrel. Hartlepool still surprises me with its contrasts and conflicts,Continue reading “The Lost World”
To see a thousand things – October
October started with great excitement. A Facebook friend posted a photo of a shrew that her cat had caught in the garage. The photo, just of its head, resembled a flattened Womble, which is exactly how I think White-toothed shrews look. I would have gone with that identification were it not for the fact thatContinue reading “To see a thousand things – October”
Raven on the Wing 