I have never really liked Chris Packham, and I certainly never thought I’d see the day when one of his television programmes about the countryside actually made sense. “The Truth About Wildlife” has been a three part series of documentaries looking at the continued and worrying decline of British wildlife, despite government attempts to stem Continue reading

I don’t make a habit of linking to other websites, but I must admit that I have been enjoying the BTO’s Observations of a sample of five cuckoos which were radio tagged in Norfolk last week. The five birds are plotted daily on an interactive map, and it looks like we have finally found a Continue reading

Just thought that it would be worth mentioning that I spotted the first wheatear chicks up and about two days ago. I only just managed to take  this photograph of one of the three chicks before it vanished into the long grass this evening on the way down from the hill. It’s funny that, like Continue reading

Lamping in the summer has to be one of the best parts of my project so far. I’m not a mad keen lamping enthusiast like some gamekeepers, but I do like the chance to look at the farm after dark when a different selection of birds and mammals takes to the stage. I’ve recently been Continue reading

When I recently claimed that stoats were my favourite British mammal, I made a mistake. Stoats certainly sit very highly on my list of favourites, but I forgot to include an even better beast in my calculations. I have never seen a pine marten in the flesh, but just knowing that they are out there Continue reading

It would be boring to turn this blog solely into a series of articles which bash buzzards – it is patently obvious that something needs to be done about these birds as soon as possible, but before I sign off on them for now, it is worth including two photographs that I took this morning Continue reading

After a great deal of controversy and anticipation, BBC Scotland broadcast it’s programme on raptor persecution on Monday night. The documentary is now available to watch on iPlayer (by clicking HERE), and I saw it last night with a certain sense of forboding. Contrary to expectations, it was not all bad. Despite the fact that Continue reading

Just thought that it would be worth quickly posting that both of the blackbird chicks (described below) have since met their maker at the hands of a hen sparrowhawk. One of them was killed just a few minutes after I published the post on Monday, and the other died yesterday, flailing its feathers all through Continue reading

As if the early summer weather wasn’t obvious enough, I spotted a fledged family of blackbirds in the garden this afternoon. What they are doing up and about so early in the year is a mystery, but the two young birds certainly seemed full of the joys of spring, greedy and squeaking like demons. They Continue reading

Writing about birds of prey can quickly lose its appeal. Although I was bombarded with abuse earlier this year for daring to write about the hen harrier, I can’t help chipping in on a bird that is fast becoming a serious problem. From the perspective of an obsessive lover of Scottish moorland, one of the Continue reading