The 6th July saw the 17th record of Caspian Tern at Minsmere, that well-known RSPB reserve on the Suffolk coast. A weekly round-up of interesting bird sightings in the UK, available from Rare Bird Alert to subscribers, showed that the previous 16 records spanned the years between 1961 and 1996, but with no records at all from the 1970s. But,
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Adult woodcock, the books said, may transport their young one by one, away from danger, by carrying them between their legs as they fly. Well, I though it was an old gamekeepers’ tale unlikely to be true until I saw it happen some years ago in the New Forest. There, in early morning daylight near Crockford Bridge, I kicked up
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Take half a bucket of peanuts, add several handfuls of porridge oats and a jar of peanut butter, then mix all by hand together with an industrial quantity of warmed golden syrup, and you have the recipe for culinary temptation in the world of the badger.  Lace this with a scoop of small food-quality plastic beads of a single colour, say yellow, and chuck balls
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I spent last week in NE Scotland surveying winter birds and sussing out badger territories on a mainly farmland site.  Arguably there’s not much else scenery-wise in the inland Buchan area of Scotland where we B&B’d and it may qualify (in my view, where landscape is always judged on its ecological merit) as the dullest part of the country. Fields of
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