Wild life

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Why former prisoners make the best lawyers

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Kampala   I am terrified of being with former death-row prisoner Susan Kigula. This is because she qualified for her…

Aidan Hartley and dead cobra

Me vs an eight-foot spitting cobra

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   ‘The End,’ I typed. The book that had taken me 14 years to write. I rose from…

If you looked only at our farm, and avoided reading the news, you might find it absurd to hear there are only 7,000 cheetah in the world

How I rewilded the African bush

3 November 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia   My two Jersey bulls Halcyon and Hosanna were grazing happily on the lawn in front of the house…

I saw my future in the entrails of a butchered sheep

6 October 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   The Turkana cowhands are on Facebook and they spend a lot of time on their cell phones,…

I’m taking the bull by the horns and heading to the prize show

25 August 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia ‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we…

Wild life

28 July 2018 9:00 am

Maasai Mara   Last night the hyenas made off with our fudge cake. We are camped with a group of…

A cow is better than a bank balance

30 June 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   A minotaur head glowers at me through the bathroom window while I am brushing my teeth in…

The joys of early rising

2 June 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia I wake at 4 a.m. these days. At that time you might hear a lion or a braying zebra,…

Tripping in the African bush

5 May 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya Neighbours Tom and Jo came by with a bucketful of wild African mushrooms, which they had collected in…

Farming is a hard life no matter where you do it

7 April 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya Erupe is a Kenyan farmer. He owns a smallholding of a few acres not far from my own…

The wisdom of toads, termites and wait-a-bit thorns

10 March 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia Off Madagascar the other day the Indian Ocean gave birth to a little storm called 11S. As its gyre…

Cold Comfort Farm comes to Kenya

10 February 2018 9:00 am

Laikipia I woke with the breath of a leopard a few feet from me as I lay in my bed.…

How to bee-proof yourself

13 January 2018 9:00 am

Kenya  First comes a distant hum, rising in volume until I hear it coming straight at me like Niki Lauda…

Aidan Hartley: A plague of ravenous zebras

16 December 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   The zebra lacks a rumen and eats at least twice as much as a cow. On our…

Why Kenya matters

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia   Flying home across Laikipia’s ranchlands with Martin after a farmers’ meeting, I see the plateau dotted with cattle…

Wild life

7 October 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia Ripping up the black cotton soil on the farm’s high savannah I get a sense of what it must…

Wild life

26 August 2017 9:00 am

Indian Ocean coast Like most men I wonder if I have been much good as a father, but one thing…

Wild life

29 July 2017 9:00 am

Kenya   We are on the beach, where our home is full of dystopian stories. My daughter Eve is whizzing…

Wild life

1 July 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   During our evening walk on the farm, Claire kept looking around nervously instead of engaging in conversation.…

Wild life

3 June 2017 9:00 am

The guests at my brother-in-law Rick’s 70th birthday lunch party were distinguished, silver-haired, well heeled. Long before Rick rescued the…

Wild life

6 May 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya On my way home to the ranch, I stopped for a beer with my neighbour Martin. It was…

Wild life

8 April 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   For weeks the farm has been in the eye of a storm, with violence swirling all around…

Wild life

11 March 2017 9:00 am

Laikipia On Tristan Voorspuy’s hell-for-leather riding safaris across Kenya’s savannah, he cracked a bullwhip at predators that tried to eat…

Wild life

9 March 2017 3:00 pm

Laikipia On Tristan Voorspuy’s hell-for-leather riding safaris across Kenya’s savannah, he cracked a bullwhip at predators that tried to eat…

Wild life

11 February 2017 9:00 am

 Laikipia plateau, Kenya My great-grandpa Ernest Wise was an engineer who sailed to South Africa towards the end of the…