The winding road from the spa town of Kizilcahamam leads to Soğuksu Millî Parkı, literally translated as Cold Water National Park, a remnant patch of old pine forest that covers the steep hills. The protection may have been to safeguard the precious water, but the forest also holds petrified trees as […]
In the late afternoon, the warm wind blows from the west and the sun shines over the wide, grazing marshes and rare, reed bed remnant of the Stour valley. The mere at the east end near Grove Ferry is full of moulting teal and shoveler and lapwings, gulls […]
19th July, 2016 Bernwood Forest is one of the great butterfly woodlands of England. The forest today is much altered; a great dark window in the heart of Oxfordshire with irregular panes of dull softwood supported by thin hardwood frames. Early morning on the hottest day of the year […]
14th July 2016 Bonaparte’s Gull Chroicocephalus philadelphia, as its scientific name testifies, is a North American species, and as ubiquitous as the similar black-headed gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus is here in Western Europe. A single Bonaparte’s turns up at Oare Marshes, and immediately the record is run out as an alert online; […]
Park Gate Down is a dry valley hidden in the well-wooded hills between Stelling Minnis and Elham. The string of three small meadows, wrapped in dark, dense woodland, are ungrazed chalk grassland full of famous orchids, myriad other plants and insects. The fields were never ploughed in […]
The A225 sweeps the edge of the downs above the Darenth, passing Lullingstone’s long history; the railway runs the same route, switching sides on Victorian brick bridges. On a sunshine-filled evening, a little after the first Wednesday in June, riders in black leather lean low into the curves and cars run […]
The paths around the flooded gravel workings are amongst tall woodlands of alder Alnus glutinosa and willows Salix spp. The view of the largest lake travels across low bare islands of mud and stone. Here lapwings Vanellus vanellus tumble and chase, gulls idle and ringed […]
Bough Beech reservoir sits beneath the woodland that cloaks the North Downs. In late April, the long expanse of bright water is hardly stirred by a cold breeze. The south end of the reservoir is given over to sailing and the flotilla of dinghies, lit brilliant white in […]
The large pool known as the East Flood abuts the narrow lane to the old ferry to Harty. The waders and wildfowl within the nature reserve feed in the shallows at the water’s edge, nearly all immune to passing cars and a slow steam of walkers, […]
Cliffe Pools, north of Higham on a breathless, sunny day in mid January is full of sleeping waterfowl. The RSPB reserve is a peaceful, patchwork of large lakes adjacent to the Thames; former clay diggings that fed the local cement industry. Now the industry is all around; power stations […]
The winding lane to Harty Ferry passes through Capel Fleet where a distant herd of great, brown bulls deter most away from the footpath that runs from the road across a flat landscape towards the distant Swale Estuary. The raised path is a stumble, being water-logged and pot-holed by […]
Aberystwyth is dark under a deep depression and saturated from the incessant rain. On the seafront, the high-roofed Old College squares up to the sea, foaming waves beat the high sea wall that protects this alarming Gothic pile. Safe on the landward side, we look in vain for a wintering black redstart […]
