The small village of Rhandirmwyn sits within the upper Tywi valley on the northern edge of Carmarthenshire in mid-Wales. Red kites held out around here in perilously small numbers through the 19th and early 20th centuries until they gradually reclaimed much of Wales through coordinated protection and monitoring by local watchers and the goodwill of…
Birds of the Gulf of Aqaba and Northern Red Sea in Spring
10th – 20th March 2025 Swallows run through in loose flocks overland, stopping briefly in the early morning to forage in vegetated wadis; small parties of green sandpipers huddle on the coast; and garganey flocks move north low over the sea. The coast is quiet and migration is just commencing; this is time when species…
A Snettisham Spring Tide
The high tide on the Wash at dusk on the 1st March before the ‘big spring’ the next morning occurs on a quiet, still evening. At Snettisham Beach, a mile north of the old gravel pits, the oystercatchers come down the water’s edge in a constant procession of small flocks that fly just over the…
Brancaster Beach, Norfolk
The last visit here was in a hideous midwinter gale a couple of years ago, but the weather in early March is crisp and clear with hardly a breath of wind. The tide is out and the gulls, oystercatchers and redshanks work the shallow pools and channels along this huge stretch of beach that sits…
First Flowering Dates
February brings out the cherry plum Prunus cerasifera; and as its the first to blossom in the hedgerows on the North Downs it always gets a mention. But it’s not a native species but introduced from Central Asia and the Balkans and cultivated from the 16th century; hence its other more exotic name of myrobalan plum….
Sissinghurst Castle Garden’s Sphinxes and Satyrs
Sphinxes and Satyrs are found on some beautiful, turquoise vases that adorn the patios and paths in the Castle Garden. A pair lining the forecourt have Satyrs as handles; these were wild, half-man, half-beast spirits associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and famed for their debauchery and outrageous behaviour. An adjacent pair are decorated…
Rye Harbour Nature Reserve
The first day of February is bright sunshine and the Nature Reserve and its visitor centre draws a crowd after a permanently miserable January. The rapid flow of incoming seawater in one of the main channels from the Rother attracts a patient little egret surrounded by a handful of less patient herring gulls that are…
The Wash in Winter
At Snettisham Beach, the dark mudflats riven with water channels stretch into the mists to the west. The myriad worms, crustacea and molluscs that live in the fine sands support over 400,000 wintering waterbirds including around 80,000 red knot; the estuary is also the roost site for around 30,000 wintering pink-footed geese that commute at…
Winter faces
The weather at Elmley on the North Kent Marshes is grey and uninviting; we miss a short-eared owl and peregrine in the gloom, but an obliging female kestrel and passing male marsh harrier make the day.
Whitstable Seafront
Whitstable seafront lit by the afternoon sun on a high tide in October. This was taken from Shellness on the Isle of Sheppey.
Roosting Waders on a Spring Tide
On a big spring tide at Shellness in North Kent (5.71m on October 19th), the saltmarsh gets one of its few inundations and the curlews that roost at the top end of the saltmarsh eventually get moved on by the slowly rising waters. Grey plovers seek refuge on the groynes and the oystercatchers simply move…
Birds of the Gulf of Aqaba and Northern Red Sea – Autumn
The northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba are wild and beautiful seascapes; on exposed rocky coasts there are windy, deep blue waters lined with white horses and fringed by a coral reef; elsewhere brown and coffee-coloured sands meet calm, shimmering, turquoise bays. In autumn, the coastline holds a sprinkling of waders, herons and raptors…