Garden Party

Spring has sunk into high summer. Days of hot sunshine and sneezes, the air thick with pollen and a rapidly expanding grasshopper orchestra. My time has been stretched. A new issue of Fallon’s Angler has been tied up and released, a sample chapter for a potential project picked at and almost certainly over-scrutinised. A newContinue reading “Garden Party”

Butterflies and Thistles

  My daily checks of the grass snake colony (8 individuals is my best count so far) now have an added distraction. The landowner has left an area of old paddock to it’s own devices and the grasses and wildflowers have flourished, growing deep and dense enough for a roebuck to mooch within. Prime spotContinue reading “Butterflies and Thistles”

A flutter of wings

I completed a reptile survey on a local reserve last week, and found surprisingly little.  There was a handful of slow worms, and a good scuttle of common lizards, but I failed to find a single snake which is a first for this site. I wasn’t unduly concerned. I deliberately opted to survey in theContinue reading “A flutter of wings”