Bog Myrtle & Peat

I was frightened of the pike which followed my hook to the shore. He was more than I bargained for, and the windswept, gorgeous summer’s day was darkened when he came. He can’t have been more than two feet long, and at first he was only a shadow – but as my rig came up… Continue reading

It was hot on the comeback from Carlisle, and somebody had opened the windows in our carriage. As we poured across the bridge of the Esk in the sunshine, cows stood beside the railway line like dabs of fresh paint. The shoulder of Criffel rose beyond them, and for a gap of several miles, there’s… Continue reading

Falcons nest on the drab, black face of a desperate, silent hill. It’s as far as you can get from tarmac and electricity in the south of Scotland; more than three hours’ walk and drive to the nearest tiny town. If you were to fall and snap your leg in the scree, the chances are… Continue reading

It all came to nothing in the end. The lapwing chick was inexplicably lost when it was twenty five days old, and a second nest was destroyed by a digger. A third nest appeared and was marked with a traffic cone to protect it from farm machinery – the eggs were saved but the nest… Continue reading

They’ve opened up a quarry in the woods behind the house. Heavy machines have come to roar at the granite, and I can hardly complain because this work is nothing new. For as long as I’ve known this place, the roadsides have been strewn with the car-sized wrecks of rocks blown out in the sixties.… Continue reading

I planned to put a camera in the tree where the oystercatchers made their nest. I was curious to find out more about them, and it seemed like a fun project to run alongside a hundred other jobs in the spring. But by the time I got a ladder and batteries for my camera, several… Continue reading

The river runs around the town at the back of the sewage works and the builder’s yard where the giant hogweed grows. There’s shit and prams in the shallows; horses and digger booms which overstand the current and frame the glimpse of a tall church steeple. This is where the tideline gently overlays the catchment’s… Continue reading

At this time of year, Teesdale is one of richest and most exciting places to see birds in the Uk. If you’re interested in moorland wildlife, it’s a kind of paradise to be out around Langdon Beck in the sunshine to the tune of a dozen redshank calling. Lapwings shepherd their chicks to the nibbled… Continue reading

At first I was worried that the lapwings would wear themselves out with the endless bother of protecting their chicks. They were frantic, and even the smallest twitch of a pipit or a wagtail would send them into gales of protective fury. But now that the last surviving chick is seventeen days old, they’re far… Continue reading

For several years, a particular pair of oystercatchers laid their eggs in the meadow above the estuary. I put cameras at their nest and watched them come and go with great excitement. Sometimes they would last for two or three weeks before badgers would eat their eggs – but in other years, the eggs would… Continue reading