Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK and this year it falls on the 11th day of the 11th month. The Second World War was the deadliest conflict in human history but I was surprised to learn that the First World War was ‘only’ the sixth deadliest. At this time of year we wear paper […]
Author: Mark Avery
Dr Mark Avery is a biologist by training and a naturalist by inclination. He worked for the BirdLife International UK partner, the RSPB, from 1986-2011, with the last 12 years of that as Conservation Director. He lives in the UK in east Northamptonshire and often sees red kites over his garden. He is now a freelance writer and consultant.
Searching for rare birds
At the weekend I went on a twitch, looking for a rare bird – except it is just a rarer bird rather than a really rare one. I realised that I didn’t see a spotted flycatcher last year, partly because I was looking at mountain bluebirds instead, and I hadn’t seen one yet this year […]
Spring in Northants – A name, but not a rose
There is lots of cow parsley in flower by the roadsides at the moment. As a hopeless botanist – or plant-identifier – I like cow parsley because I usually recognise it and know what it is. Cow Parsley has a variety of other names – like most of our plants, it seems. The nicest, which […]
Americans having sex – what a laugh!
Today was an easy day – I mooched around the area of Bull’s Island near Charleston, South Carolina and Charleston itself. Charleston has lots of ‘old’ buildings – but it is a very pretty place. You have to cross a very impressive modern bridge to get to it and then it’s quaint and southern and […]
Spring in Northants 4 Hello!
It’s a bit of a relief that I have now heard my first cuckoo of the year. It’s very late – I always hear them in April, sometimes mid April, but this year it took until 7 May. I was beginning to wonder whether what I had assumed was just a delay was actually going […]
Spring in Northants 3 Be quick!
It’s supposed to be very British to talk about the weather so much but that’s what we are all moaning about right now. It’s rained every day for over two weeks and it’s not very warm and it’s supposed to be spring. Huh! I did slip out one day last week and managed a two […]
Spring in Northants 2 Whose warblers are best?
Spring has moved on. Another week and another few spring arrivals. This week, at Stanwick Lakes, I’ve recorded returning garden warblers, reed warblers, house martins, whitethroat and little ringed plover. I’m still missing cuckoo and yellow wagtail which I would have expected to have seen by now. A year ago I was coming to the […]
Spring in Northants 1
Spring has been a stuttering, stammering thing this year – a bit like my attempts to start posting here. But now I think spring has actually properly arrived and I’ll be keeping you posted on its progress through this blog. I live in Northamptonshire in the UK. We’re about 50 miles north of London – […]