Take a little round ball of feathers, add a pointy beak, a silly sticky-uppy tail and a pair of big feet and you have yourself a Wren….and here’s one I made earlier. I’m actually amazed that this picture came out ok because this tiny Troglodytes troglodytes was more than living up to his Latin name by skulking about in the darkest recesses of the thickest woodland undergrowth that he could find and wouldn’t keep still for more than a few moments at a time! He was also…

Five decades ago this parasitic member of the Figwort family was far more prolific than it is today and I always made sure way back in the 1950s that there was a box-full or two of Yellow Rattle fruit capsules containing the plant' s seeds on the classroom nature-table because of the sound-effects you could make by shaking them! In fact, the country name for the plant used to be “Rattle-Box” (something almost completely forgotten these days it seems), while in certain Southern…

Another perfect example of why you should always have a camera of some sort on your person at all times….This character suddenly appeared out of nowhere, walked right past me as bold as you like and then settled down in a flower bed to munch on a few plant stems less than five metres from me….Although completely wild and unconfined, she didn’t show the least concern when I crept to within just a couple of metres of her to get this photograph! There’re another couple of…

I was asked today what had happened to the baby Robins raised by Uppity Bill and Stroppy Madam in one of the nest-boxes in my garden and who I featured on my websites a few weeks ago….Well, at least two of the four chicks appear to have survived and are still hanging around and about my garden.

I’ve put a few pictures of this particular Robin on my websites, but this one probably epitomises the belligerent nature of this bird more than any other! In all fairness though, what thoughts do you suppose go through his little mind as he sits there surveying his universe? “Ruby” the Robin Mate to “White-Eye”, “Ruby” is easily the most timid of my four resident Robins, one pair occupying the front garden, the other pair at the back….most of the…