Cover story

The week has passed, looking neither to the left nor the right, and scurrying through in the hope that it would be finished before something awful happened. On Tuesday a shaggy-plumaged robin hopped up onto the feeder. It cocked its head and looked at me as if to say ‘hello there, I haven’t seen––’ Ahem. …

A year ago today…

...it was cloudy. I have the photos to prove it. The plan for the day: up early (the emptiness of the road will give you a clue exactly how early), a walk round my local patch to see how the nuthatch chicks and other new arrivals were doing, breakfast, school run, work on some Berlioz, …

Billions of blathering buffoons

The week has passed, spending its time gawping open-mouthed at the events across the Atlantic, and pausing only to complain about the first significant rain for two months. When it hasn’t been raining (don’t tell anyone, but this has actually been most of the time) I’ve managed some fine early morning walks, taking in my …

Trouble at t’feeder

The bird feeders in our garden have turned into a battleground. Our efforts to quell the onslaught of ring-necked parakeets have come to nought. We’d hoped they might be too heavy for the new spring-loaded feeders we bought to deter the squirrels. No such luck. One parakeet is a delight. Two are acceptable. Three are a gang. Four are reason …