Perfect Air

The first brush of autumn frost glistened beneath this morning’s sunrise. Nothing too hard, certainly not enough to drop any fruit from the hedgerows, but a glittery crunch that made me shiver as I peered out the window to a new day. It soon vanished as the Sun cleared the ridge to the south ofContinue reading “Perfect Air”

Sloughing heck it’s cold!

It has been a peculiar week. Eight days ago I drove home towards the setting sun, after an afternoon spent on a favourite patch of Dorset heathland. The air had been alive with birdsong – woodlark, pipits, stonechats, sedge warbler, dartford warbler, cuckoo and whitethroat. There were lizards (including a sand lizard) and slow wormsContinue reading “Sloughing heck it’s cold!”

New Colours

It would be lovely to slow time down in spring. So much can change in a day, while over the course of a week, an empty sky is suddenly thick with swallows, and the yellows of celandines and primroses have been swamped by the blues and purples of violets and bluebells. With the sun high,Continue reading “New Colours”

Waking Up…

Its been a slow start to spring. The weather has been reasonably settled but successive systems have channeled Arctic air from north, keepingĀ  temperatures down and many of our migrants south of the Channel. Normally by now we would be seeing a steady stream of swallows, chats and warblers arriving on the south coast, yetContinue reading “Waking Up…”