natural history
Try forest bathing – by day and night – to ward off depression
Anyone who spends time among trees senses how good that is for their physical and mental wellbeing, says Ursula Buchan
Why do anglers get so hooked?
The other day a friend asked me what a lascar was. Fair enough: it’s not a word you come across…
A hymn to the hummingbird — one of the most astonishing organisms on Earth
Along with coral reefs and their fish, tropical butterflies and birds of paradise, hummingbirds must be among the most beautiful…
Born to be wild: the plight of salmon worldwide
In the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans paint images of salmon on to stones. They say that if you rub those…
Eager for beavers : the case for their reintroduction
Conservationists are frequently criticised for focusing on glamorous species at the expense of others equally important but unluckily uglier —…
Why fungi might solve the world’s problems
The biologist Merlin Sheldrake is an intriguing character. In a video promoting the publication of his book Entangled Life, which…
The world’s largest, rarest owl is used for target practice in Siberia
The montane forests of far-eastern Russia have given rise to one of the finest nature books of recent years, The…
The sex life of the Monarch butterfly is positively wild
Wendy Williams is an enthusiast, and enthusiasm is infectious. Lepidoptery is for her a new fascination, and it shows. On…
Children should get out more — even if it’s for hide and seek in the park
We live in an urban world. It’s a statistical fact. The great outdoors for most of us is a thing…
Ireland through the eyes of a brilliant teenage naturalist
Dara McAnulty is a teenage naturalist from Northern Ireland. He has autism; so do his brother, sister and mother —…
Where did birds first learn to sing?
Fieldwork can move the most rigorous scientist to lyricism, as Mark Cocker discovers
Nature fights back with tooth and claw as we persist in destroying it
Where to turn in anxious and febrile times? One answer is to nature, or the ‘non-human living world’, which, despite…
Dangerously desirable: the white-morph gyr falcon commands sky-high prices
The art of falconry is more than 3,000 years old and possibly as popular now as at any time. Its…
From pets to pests: cats, rabbits and now raccoons
I was shocked some years ago to discover, as I scratched bites on my ankles on holiday on Maui, that…
Pigeons are plucky and loyal — so don’t go poisoning them in the park
Growing up as a rootless army brat in bases home and abroad, I would listen in appalled delight to my…
Busy beavers: in praise of man’s natural ally
The British experience of beavers is somewhat limited. Most of us haven’t been lucky enough to have spied an immigrant…
Wonder is all around
Different people find different things impressive. Some claim, for instance, to experience a sense of wonder at the fact of…
Swine fever
‘Rightly is they called pigs,’ says a farmworker in Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow as he watches porkers grunt and squelch.…
Cathedral of creation
Sometimes, it pays to rediscover what’s already under your nose. I’ve been umpteen times to the Natural History Museum but…
Formidable black talons…
I often feel slightly sorry for the British nature writer. It’s not an attractive emotion — it sounds patronising —…
Charles Foster: ‘I need to be more of a badger’
Being a Beast is an impassioned and proselytising work of philosophy based on a spectacular approach to nature writing. That…
The Luangwa is far from being a happy valley
Simon Barnes opens with a presumably true idea, that we are all in search of our own versions of paradise…
A piece of primeval England reborn in Sussex
A piece of ancient England is being reborn around a castle in Sussex
Bigger, better bedbugs bite back with a vengeance
‘Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ my mother used to say when she tucked me in at…
All in the name of science: three young naturalists go on an Amazonian killing-spree
John Hemming is our greatest living scholar-explorer. He is best known for his extraordinary first book The Conquest of the…
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