Songs from the Wood - one of four posts: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter - the cornerstones of this blog, about the birds I see through the year. Spring is about woods, dawn, birdsong and the Dawn Chorus - a prelude to Summer. Follow me, if you will - share your favourite birdsongs ... for others to hear.
I am currently reading 'Magpie Murders' by Anthony Horowitz and was reminded of the childhood rhyme ..... one for sorrow two for joy .... and so on. I wonder what it would be for 200! For this was the number of Magpie I counted, before it was too dark to see, coming to roost in willow scrub one winters evening near my home.
Continue reading Murder, Mischief and Murmurations – Magpie, Raven and Starling
The thing I notice most at the beginning of Autumn is that it is still dark when I get up in the mornings to let the dogs out. With mist over the meadows and dewy morns. Rowan berries aplenty; Blackberry too. Red hips and haws colour the hedges a rusty red. And Rosebay Willowherb their tall spikes lit by the evening sunshine, followed soon by clouds of gossamer-soft seeds, floating like fairies on the balmy wind: The end of summer.
Continue reading Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) …. Autumn
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 […]