Aidan Hartley

Aiden Hartley is the Spectator's Wild Life columnist.

Life lessons from a 2,000-year-old plant

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Iona, Angola East of the gulps of cormorants along the Skeleton Coast by the Ilha da Baia dos Tigres, Atlantic…

My hopes for Africa

31 August 2024 9:00 am

Lake Malawi As we speed southwards along the potholed road near Lake Malawi’s shores, I tell my colleague Helen that…

The joy of getting lost in the Congo

3 August 2024 9:00 am

Republic of Congo I’m sending this to you from the rainforest in Congo, surrounded by vast trees and jungle noises…

Nairobi’s streets are fizzing with violence – and I’m glad to be home

6 July 2024 9:00 am

Nairobi, Kenya Parliament and City Hall were burning under great columns of smoke and clouds of tear gas hung over…

My father vs the killer lion

8 June 2024 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya This month, in broad daylight on our Kenyan farm, a lioness mauled one of my bull calves. Before…

My battle with the dreaded ‘black cotton’

11 May 2024 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya By the time I set off from the farm before dawn we’d had 22in of rain in the…

Am I having a heart attack?

6 April 2024 9:00 am

Nairobi Some of our medical practitioners in Kenya advertise their services on street corners. ‘Bad omens, lost lovers, broken marriage,…

The nuance of Kenya

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Wild life

30 September 2023 9:00 am

Hassan still has no dhow to captain

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Kenya Hassan was our skipper. He’d take us in his dhow out on the Indian Ocean for trips along the…

A farewell to alcohol

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Laikipia Some are saved by Jesus and they are sober. For others, drunkenness is as natural as love-making, roasted meat…

The beauty of Boran cattle

8 July 2023 9:00 am

The Farm, Laikipia Outside the nightjars were calling and a zebra brayed in the valley. The constellations were still bright…

Progress is coming to our remote corner of Kenya

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Laikipia The principal of the local polytechnic was waiting for me in the kitchen. Frequently in the kitchen there is…

We survived the worst drought in a generation

13 May 2023 9:00 am

The Farm, Laikipia I realised the worst drought of this generation was at last over this morning when two Samburu…

How Moscow can pervert the course of Africa’s future

15 April 2023 9:00 am

On the lengthy train ride to Kyiv I read my Plokhy as we trundled through seas of mud, passing villages…

My conversations with Wilfred Thesiger

18 March 2023 9:00 am

When Wilfred Thesiger arrived in the port of Al Mukalla after his foot crossing of the Empty Quarter desert with…

The man who makes money where no one else dares to go

18 February 2023 9:00 am

Rwanda The mineshaft is dark, the air humid and starved of oxygen. I follow Marcus Edwards-Jones out of the muddy…

Wild life

18 January 2023 10:00 pm

In praise of missionaries

17 December 2022 9:00 am

Kenya Tonj is a war-battered settlement on a river that eventually feeds into the White Nile, in South Sudan. When…