Category: Wildlife

The Woodcock

The Woodcock

She senses me before I sense her, of course, after all, this is a bird who hears worms. Both of us hunker, trying to disappear into earth she, a tessellation of feathers and I a tall shape in a woolly hat. Minutes pass but we stay rooted, the frosted grass cool on our toes. To her, this scene is familiar, she's lived it a hundred times or more crouching to avoid foxes and huntsmen, who delight...

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Ghosts and Giants on Hermaness

Ghosts and Giants on Hermaness

As soon as we knew that our trip to Shetland was definitely happening, the first place Simon and I honed in on, independently, was the island of Unst. Unst is Shetland’s most northerly inhabited island. If you were to get in a boat and head directly north from its upper end, between the rocky outcrops of Muckle Flugga and Out Stack, you’d eventually reach the North Pole. Legend has it that the...

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Walnut and Ash

Walnut and Ash

Recently, I’ve been fortunate. I have been in the company of Owls. The first, a Barn Owl, took me by surprise as I planted out courgettes. I have plans to write a longer piece about that encounter, so for now I’ll leave you with a photograph I took that evening. The second involves Owlets. A pair of Tawny Owlets which I stumbled upon just over a week ago at the edge of our garden. There have...

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Linnets

Linnets

I wrote this piece in February, 2023. The original version was published on Mark Avery's website. I have edited it slightly since then, but the majority remains the same.  Mark has also written a blog about Linnets, which can be read here.  The sky is the colour of a Wood Pigeon’s back. The air fizzes with mizzle. After breakfast, I drop my car to our local garage to be fixed, then run the lanes...

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A Phantom Above the Forest

A Phantom Above the Forest

I cannot settle. The low, heavy-bellied clouds that were here this morning have given way to a bright, sunny day. The wind has dropped, and I can’t shake the feeling that staying inside will mean I’ll miss something I’ve promised myself I’ll try to see. At midday, I throw in the towel and head out on my bike. I haven’t got too far to travel, but my old bike is rickety and makes cycling hard. It...

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Forgetting to See

Forgetting to See

I have spent too much time on social media these past few weeks, eyes to a screen instead of the sky, my camera left by the front door as the hours passed, poorly. But this morning, in an attempt to see once more, I picked it up and went into the garden. There had been a hard frost overnight, each leaf and stem coated in thick, white ice. An icing sugar landscape. Fern frost, reminiscent of the...

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A Ghostly Green Light

A Ghostly Green Light

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...

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Strangled

Strangled

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,...

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Flight

Flight

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,...

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