The well-trodden path onto the greensand ridge rises from the narrow and perennially damp valley in which Ightham Mote is hidden and eventually gives a spectular view across the Medway valley to the next sandstone ridge beyond. The chuch in the middle distance is in the small village of Shipbourne with Hadlow Tower and a…
Western Sicily Wildlife
The coastal plain at Macari on the north-west coast of Sicily has a rich flora that competes with the tourists for space. The most eye-catching is Sea Daffodil Pancratium maritimum with its clean white flowers, but perhaps this is because it is September after a long dry summer and much of the vegetation is now…
Western Sicily
We return to Palermo; it is one of the best cities for urban photography with its extraordinary mishmash of architectural styles and long perspectives down narrow streets. The extensive use of brown and dull red marble above dark grey flagstones give it a sombre tone. But the past is etched with the exuberant present, including…
Large coppers and blues in the South Charente
4th July, 2025 The rolling hills around Boisjarzeau are bleached after a months of incessant sun; the wheat has been cut early and much of the maize and sunflowers are looking small and underwatered. The irrigation where applied appears futile. The gardens are barely coping too; and yet the wet ditch in the marshy field…
La Vallée d’Ossoue
14th July 2025 La vallée d’Ossoue sits below the Col des Tentes and runs west from Gavarnie; it is a long valley of two halves with flower rich grasslands full of pinks and field gentians beneath a huge cliff, that after a tortuous section of road runs into a wide valley with track that runs…
Col des Tentes, Hautes-Pyrénées
13th July 2025 Below the col, the subalpine grasslands are short-grazed and full of wheatears that nest in gullies and low cliffs. Pairs have recently fledged young so the adults frantically try to divert us with rasping calls and bold distraction displays. There is also a range of ringlet Erebia butterfly species including a dazzling…
Col du Tourmalet
July 12th 2025 This is the highest pass in the Pyrenees at 2,115m and the one revered by cyclists both for its challenging ascent as well as its consistent inclusion in the Tour de France. The wonderful sculpture at the summit is the Giant of Tourmalet (Le Géant du Tourmalet), or simply Octave in memory of Octave…
Cirque de Gavarnie
Tourism has transformed the pretty, mountain village of Gavarnie; its huge car park is filled by mid-morning. Most visitors run the gauntlet of shops and cafes and then hike up the valley to the immense cirque with its 400m high waterfall; this entails walking the track up through the pine forest and pastures to the…
Two East Anglian Tudor Manor Houses
Kentwell Hall in Long Melford, Suffolk and Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk are both moated, Tudor manor houses. Both have belonged to prominent Catholic families; the Cloptons at Kentwell and the Bedingfields at Oxburgh. The Cloptons took on Kentwell in 1377 but ran out of heirs in the middle of 17th century; the Bedingfields have lived at…
Barn owl
Four in the morning and a barn owl hunts over the hay meadows for another hour before heading to the barns where there is surely a brood of young waiting to be fed; it is a fruitless hour of quartering and the occasional dive into the sward before reappearing empty handed. The grasses, mainly false…
June butterflies and orchids
A hot and dry June brings out the bee, fragrant and pyramidal orchids here on the North Downs; it seems a good year for them all even though the ground is parched. There are also droves of meadow browns, marbled whites and skippers. The dark green fritillaries are on the greater knapweed Centaurea scabiosa in…
Ffridd
The unenclosed hill slopes or ffridd are a mosaic of bracken, scrub, heather, grass and wet flushes that lie between the pasture fields and the mountain plateaus. Around the Elenydd mountains in mid-Wales, ffridd is rich with small birds including redstarts, yellowhammers, tree pipits, whinchats and stonechats. Redpolls, siskins and mistle thrushes are common in…