The road from Virpazar runs along the southern shore of Lake Skader but this is no gentle drive but a twisting, edge of the hill, thread of a lane for 30km or more to Ostros. The dramatic drive gives dramatic views of the Lake and villages that find the few areas of flat fertile land…
Biogradska Gora
The tarmac path from the car park up to the small lake within Biogradska National Park is only a couple of kilometres but Spring had not started to dent the knee deep snow. The lake is 1,094m above sea level so the sign told me and a different world from the oak-clad hills filled with crocus…
Pygmy Cormorant
The morning was crisp and clear and this unruffled pygmy cormorant hung out to dry just over the road. Pygmy and great cormorants, the latter far less confiding here, do not have any oils in their feathers to keep the water out like ducks, grebes and coot, so they swim, dive and dry, always in this…
Lake Skadar
Virpazar is a small town just off the main highway that runs from the inland capital Podgorica to Bar on the Adriatic coast. The small turning runs across the single track railway towards the Voli supermarket and Hotel Pelikan. The road runs past, soon-to-be busy cafes and tourist agencies set in a small plaza towards an old…
Montenegro – an introduction
I am staying in Montenegro for the Spring to try to learn something of the wildlife and ecology. Based on what I have read, here is a short introduction to the nature of the country: Montenegro is a small country, not much larger than the department of Dordogne in France, and rectangular in shape. One short edge borders…
Strathpeffer, Strathspey
The old bird table in the back garden sat next to an equally old tangle of honeysuckle with an overgrown field, weeds flattened by winter, and impenetrable holly trees beyond. The tall limes stood to the north and hence did not cast their shade on the sunny, small house sheltered from the road by a thick beech hedge….
Teynham, Oare thereabouts
Teynham’s rich brown brick earth was where the first cherry orchards sprang, planted by command of Henry VIII. As I walked under another Spring blue sky accompanied as ever by a razor sharp wind from the northwest, I could find no sign of old manor or other tell-tale history apart from the church on the low hill…
Cobham
I walked under grey skies, giving occasional rain but with rare splashes of weak sun, from Sole Street to Cobham. The footpath took off through grassy orchards to the Church. These held no veteran bramley, cox or russet, just neatly numbered rows of whips held up by beanpoles and wire. There were a few flocks…
Eastling Spring
I found the village hidden deep in downland hills, quiet in its solitude. By virtue of its geography, remote from Watling Street to the north, the village was little grown, with only a few recent cul-de-sacs and closes tacked on to those that had been standing for centuries and not much more than recorded at Domesday. The Carpenters Arms was…
Wild Wingate
The weather they said was bad, so I intended the circular nine miles to be more an exercise in finding the best route that finding wildlife. The first three miles along the Wealden Way, from Sole Street to Great Buckland, was done with hardly a full stop or backward glance; in any case Luddesdown was dowdy under…
A Murder in Reculver
Yesterday, I drove the A2 east under clear skies to the hamlet of Reculver, located on the flat coast not far from Margate and parked next to the pub beneath the remnant twin towers of the 12th century church. Admiring its fearful symmetry and outstanding location, I reckoned this would never get planning permission today. The stark, stone…
Raspberry Hill to Bedlams Bottom
On Thursday, I walked north-west from Swale railway station across the grazing marshes that fringe the Medway to the west of Sheppey. I endured a wild arctic wind but under the brightest of blue skies. Keeping to the lee of flood banks helped. I hoped to explore Ferry Marshes but had to contain myself to…