2021 Each year, I make a note of the day the Swallows arrive back to the barns near our house, and when they leave. This year, the first male arrived back earlier than usual, on the 31st March, and the majority left on the 5th September. But one pair stayed. Curiosity piqued, I looked out for them each day. With his long tail streamers, it was often the male I noticed, rushing low over the...
I wake in the early hours to a faint green light on my ceiling, no bigger than the tip of a matchstick. Curious, I climb out of bed, inch my way across the bedroom and fumble for the light switch. In an instant the magic is extinguished. Now all I see is a cellar spider with something in her web, which I gingerly remove while balancing barefoot on a wooden chest. It’s a male glow-worm. With the...
I hear a scream. I look out, expecting to see the last breaths of a dying rabbit. But instead of a rabbit, I see a stoat. It is hanging from an antiquated drain cover in our front garden, head wedged between the metal bars so that its body dangles below them like a hooked fish. It is suspended by its neck and cannot touch the floor. I rush into the garden and grab the stoat by its open jaws,...
I had a camera, but stopping would have lost too much time. Instead, we rushed through the nature reserve on our bikes, as fast as our legs would spin - breathless, hearts pumping, manic. The sun was setting. The sky was alight. Behind us, purple. Before us, red. Brilliant, vermilion red. The reeds were aglow. The trees on fire. For a minute, a barn owl floated beside us. And all the while,...