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A Tale of Two Willow Wrens
Like Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, this story is also one of contrasts; between birds, places and ways of studying natural history. It was another English literary giant, the 18th century natural historian Gilbert White – and grandfather of biological recording – who first distinguished, on the basis of their songs, not two…
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Sandhill Rustic Dreaming
A singing Robin once stirred me from a garden reverie on a gentle September afternoon. Its song, imbued with autumn melancholy, seemed to express both mortality and living beauty. I looked up at the singer, back-lit by late afternoon sunshine filtering through the elder where it perched. A light rain fell, bending, scattering and amplifying…
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The Sound of the Earth turning
Laying awake at 3.30, I heard a distant cockerel crowing somewhere in the village and, unexpectedly, a few croaky stanzas from a nearby Woodpigeon giving me the impression that it was just back from a night out on the tiles. Then silence again. At 4.00 – I’m not sure if I was still awake or…
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Message in a bottle
This morning I started reading Wild Life in a Southern County by the 19th century author and naturalist Richard Jefferies. But so far I haven’t got very far into Jefferies’ book; my progress was slowed by what I can only describe as an arresting introduction by Richard Mabey. An introduction by Richard Mabey to any…
