CUCKOO – HARBINGER OF SPRING AND CHEAT
Cuckoos are on the way! Satellite tagging by the British Trust for Ornithology has revealed their extraordinary journey. Cuckoos spend the winter with lowland gorillas in the African Congo rainforests. They leave in early March and fly to West Africa, where they fatten up in preparation for the crossing of the Sahara. They then endure a 50-60 hour non-stop flight over this vast desert. After recuperating on the shores of the Mediterranean, they continue north through Europe, reaching Britain towards the end of April.
An Underwater Walk in a Beech Woodland
Easter holidays are here, take the chance to get out and about in a woodland near you. Tessa Wardley describes a recent trip: I’m crouched down leaning against the smooth bark of an old Beech tree, it is a rare sunny day this winter and I’m hiding, as part of a game of ‘thicket’. I’m well hidden by the girth of the tree even in my layers of down jacket and I peer up to contemplate the canopy that reaches invitingly over my head. At this time of year there is little leaf cover but if I close my… Read More
Wildflower wonders
Author and photographer, Bob Gibbons suggests this is the perfect time for a trip to The Mani Peninsula to see amazing displays of wild flowers. There’s a remote peninsula in the far south of mainland Greece that still, after more than 20 visits, seems to me like a little bit of paradise. It’s the central peninsula of the Peloponnese, pointing, like a bony finger, southwards towards Crete and Africa, and when you’re there it feels like the end of the line. The whole Peloponnese is a strikingly mountainous land, wild and unspoilt;… Read More
A place for the misfit
Conor Jameson marks the death of The Goshawk author T.H White. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of author T. H. White, probably best remembered by bird enthusiasts for his mini epic The Goshawk (1951), and by the general public for The Once and Future King, his Arthurian novels, and the blockbuster Disney and Broadway spin-offs that ensued. Like J. A. Baker, author of The Peregrine (1967), White’s work has inspired a number of prominent naturalists. It seems timely to remember the man, and reflect on his life and… Read More
1963 – 2013: birding at Southill Park revisited
Conor Jameson’s British Birds feature provides food for thought on the changing status of species at Southill Park over the past 60 years. While doing some research for my book Silent Spring Revisited, I came across a 1963 issue of the Bedfordshire Naturalist journal that included an account by Bruce Campbell of a nesting bird survey that he and the (then) British Birds editor James Ferguson-Lees carried out that year. They were repeating a survey first conducted sixty years earlier. Campbell takes up the tale: ‘On June 4th, 1903, Jannion Steele-Elliott, the… Read More
Jim
Julie
Nigel
bloomsburywildlife
Vicky
Bloomsbury Wildlife 