Wildlife
My plot to take on the peach-tree thief
Summer is icumen to its end, but my peach tree yielded a fine crop this year, though most of it…
How long does it take to build a runway?
Flight path How long does it take to build a runway? — 33 years (at least) in the case of…
The cat that tamed Dom
I don’t like cats. I don’t like their reptilian stealth, or the way their heads are set low and poke…
Will ‘The Seeker’ find the truth about the Covid lab leaks?
At the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, where ghosts of British nabobs look out over the racecourse, my neuroscientist wife spoke…
My neighbour has kidnapped my beavers
My beavers have been kidnapped. A few months ago there were five of them living on my family’s farm on…
Killer in our midst
Red kites should never have been reintroduced to Britain
Wild life
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Until only a few years ago, the constellations blazed across the sky above the farm at night…
Don’t blame the badgers
My dog was bitten by an adder last week. Jessie had been snuffling around in bracken a few yards from…
Kill badgers to save hedgehogs
Until last month I hadn’t seen a hedgehog for close to 30 years, though they were part of everyday life…
The tiger who came for me
What we can learn from Jim Corbett’s big-cat tales
Gull power
These ‘endangered’ birds are taking over
Barometer
Common knowledge Tensions in the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Jamaica led some to speculate that…
Wolf at the door
Italy’s wolves are on the march
Real life
The streetlighting engineer walked up and down outside my house trying to work out who was right: me, or my…
Bitterns
Bitterns are booming, both literally and metaphorically. These handsome brown birds from the heron family make a noise quite unlike…
Adders
In early April, when the chiffchaff sings its drab little song in the leafless hawthorns, something is stirring in the…
Letter from Texas
Austin My first Independence Day in the US for many years. Usually I’d be in Paris avoiding Texas heat. My…
Are you a lockdown eel or a pygmy goat?
I identify strongly with the garden eels in the Tokyo aquarium. Pre-corona, they were perfectly sociable. Come opening hour, when…
Meditations on a scream in the night
It was a clear and icy night at home in Derbyshire last week. I love these times and, before bed,…
The commercialisation of shooting may kill the whole sport
A few years ago I was sitting on the sofa at Sandringham enjoying a ham sandwich with the Queen’s then-head…
Why we should listen to elephants
Laikipia, Kenya ‘An elephant has fallen over,’ said the man running up to me. My first thought was that…
Wildlife obsessives must learn when to back off
Richmond Park is an eerie place at this time of year. It’s not just that it’s the deer rutting season,…
All hail the return of the crane
The RSPB regularly gets calls from people who have seen ‘a funny bird’. ‘It’s got a red head and it’s…
Building artificial beauty spots to protect nests is a bird-brained idea
While walking or riding on the beautiful heathland near my home, I have noticed a growing number of signs telling…
