I spoke in Afloat in the Fens of a brace of pike spotted in a small mere, amid an otherwise banal housing estate on the edge of Thrapston and fed by the Nene. Here they are. Close by, another ambush … Read More »
It’s a scorching afternoon, still and sultry. A minute after putting in at Islip, I disturb a grey heron. It flaps a gawky take off across the river twenty metres ahead. Ten minutes after that I hear a tiny plash … Read More »
Needing spiritual refreshment after two months making repairs to my house in Sheffield (I let it out, and hand over the rent collected to my own landlord) and a recent flurry of posts on Julian Assange, I took the junior … Read More »
It’s the last Thursday of June, the hottest day of the year so far. Patrolling the sky above Barton Broad a pair of common terns glide, hover and swoop for small fry. I’m in the shade of willow and alder, … Read More »
Mathematician and astronomer Fred Hoyle rejected the big bang theory (coining that term in a radio interview put-down) in favour not of creationism but of panspermia – the idea that life on earth originated in micro-organisms arriving from outer space. … Read More »
Snapped on Tuesday, on a day trip to Brancaster, east of Sandringham on the southern coast of the Wash. I can photograph terns any day of the week at Attenborough, a ten minute stroll from my door. But Norfolk’s a … Read More »
Yesterday my favourite water bird further endeared itself to me. At Colwick Country Park, where flooded gravel pits are topped up by the Trent a few miles downstream of Nottingham, a pair of great crested grebes were ferrying chicks on … Read More »
A pair of Egyptian geese with only one gosling, my best pictures yet of those fallow deer – and the woods a blue shimmering haze. A few of the images at Wollaton Park on what is forecast to be the … Read More »
Don’t say ‘earwash’. I’ve penned this ode to not making a fool of yourself around these parts. Yesterday I drove to Toton Fields, bottom right on the map and a mile east of Long Eaton, to let the dogs out. … Read More »
Guardian, April 16 * . Drive through Long Eaton past Trentlock. Cross the Trent at Sawley. Left after the Marina, onto Warren Lane. Park at corner of Warren and Ratcliffe Lanes (GR 478 294). Follow paths and country lanes past … Read More »