Under the Snow of Winter - one of four posts: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter - the cornerstones of this blog, about the birds I see through the year. Follow me, if you will - leave your own footprints in the snow ... for others to follow.
Julian Hughes Bird Notes columnist of RSPB Conwy wrote a while back about Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting and Cirl Bunting, in the Daily Post I think, quoting an article from the Llandudno Advertiser sent to him by Adrian Hughes at Llandudno’s Home Front Museum.
Continue reading In Search of Yellowhammer, Corn and Cirl Bunting
How better to start this post than with a quote from the writings of Richard Jefferies:
The fervour of the sunbeams descending in a tidal flood rings on the strung harp of earth. It is this exquisite undertone, heard and yet unheard, which brings the mind into sweet accordance with the wonderful instrument of nature.—' The Life of the Fields': The Pageant of Summer.
(Composed during the snow-thaw of last month…) As I sit here, goldfinches glance across the skies outside the window, their ‘charms’ like the bounce of iambic pentameter written with wings. They turn towards our garden, and immediately, their syntax becomes jumbled by a shift and gather of chaffinches – with an adjunct of sparrows tumbling in like a hurried conclusion. […] See Also: Our Northen (Winter) Thrushes
The Farne Islands are a cluster of flat-topped rocks protruding just above the skin of the North Sea a few miles off the coast of Northumberland. So close to the surface of the waves are they that they barely make an impression against the horizon and some of the islets only get to feel the […]