The day is bright; clouds build in thick lines from the southwest and a fresh breeze blows over the bright water but these never quite overcome the warming autumn sun. Bough Beech Reservoir is observed from the low causeway with its gently shelving banks of concrete, softened over the decades by a spreading, soft carpet…
Tag: Birds
A Few Jars
The nightjars in the clear fells within the conifer forest are slowly being located. Late on a damp, cool night, heavy with cloud, suffocated by the humid air and an irritation of midges, we immediately find one of the four radio-tagged males. Tony knows he is likely to be sheltering the first brood, with the female somewhere…
Hinterland
The weather is uniform grey again in West Wales and the coast desolate and uninviting. This stretch of coast south of Aberystwyth was where the sad-eyed detective from the television series ‘Hinterland’ had his isolated mobile home. Beneath the long grass slope, the lively, lime green shoe-box looks out of place in front of the…
Farewell Virpazar
On a chill morning in early March a fisherman puts out not long after dawn to set his nets, baling the icy water from the small boat as he meanders the flooded channel. Fishing is tough and incessant with scant rewards outside of the short, summer tourist season. The fishermen work alongside herons, cormorants, grebes and egrets…
Lovćen Mountain
Lovćen is a mountain within the heart of Montenegro’s coastal range, rising abruptly from the dark maquis and olive-clad hills between the coastal towns of Kotor and Budva to descend more gently inland to the old capital of Cetinje. The mountain is the most accessible of them all, as there is a road running round the base…
Orahavo and Kucka Korita
The village of Orahavo with its small, grass high, hay meadows is enveloped by the shrubby hornbeam forest that is characteristic of the low limestone hills. Above, by the side of the winding road to Kucka Korita, there are small glades in the woodland full of plants and butterflies. The breeding birds are quieter now…
Chasing Apollos in the Rijeka Cijevna Valley
The Rijeka Cijevna (River Cijevna) runs down a wild, steep-sided valley and forms the boundary between Albania and Montenegro to the east of Podgorica. There is a small road that follows the river up the narrowing valley passing farms, a small school, an even smaller church and a disused border control booth; the road crosses the river…
The Prokletije Mountains
The tourist town of Plav, surrounded by blossoming plum orchards and set next to its pretty lake, and the smaller, more prosaic Gusinje sit beneath the Prokletije mountains within a broad valley joined by the meandering river Ljuča. The mountain range forms a natural barrier with Albania to the east and Kosovo to the north. Like…
Lake Skadar Transitions
The enclosed lake beyond Vranjina has transformed from the winter view of ice blue waters and bare brown woodlands to water, jam thick with algae, lilies and reed, surrounded by shades of spring green willow and poplar. The rate of growth of the emergent vegetation over the past weeks after the temperatures increased and the cold winds died has…
Into the Kučka Krajina Mountains
The road to tiny Bukumirsko Jezero (Lake) high in the Kučka Krajina mountains, runs north from Podgorica for some 40km, passing the small villages of Ubli and Kržanja. The road on April 29th is blocked by a lens of lumpy snow on a north facing section about five kilometres from the lake; so I never make it…
Poseljani’s Rich History and Habitats
The road winds above Lake Skadar with panoramas of lake and forest around each hairpin; through the village of Kruševica where beekeepers tend the hives and signs hang above tables of laden with tall bottles; on through pretty Komarno, and, at the end of a steep slope with lake below, a new road descending the steep valley to the old…
Evening’s End on Velika Plaza
Velika Plaza on this bright evening is huge, wild and exhilarating with a strong onshore wind, warm and welcome after a hot day; it is also cluttered with ramshackle summer cabins and endless, ugly litter, much probably brought up during winter storms but much also discarded by visitors. This evening the great beach is almost empty of people…