Country diary: this is the season for fern sex
Durham city: Minute male capsules on the prothallus burst open, releasing sperm with whiplash tails that swim frantically towards the egg cellsSince humans first began to pile stone upon stone to build...
View ArticleCountry diary: bullfinches and their passion for cherry buds
Crook, County Durham: A steady rain of shredded petals settles daily on the flagstone pathA family of bullfinches, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, started to visit our winter-flowering cherry in early December,...
View ArticleCountry diary: the magic of moss
Rokeby Park, Teesdale: It’s tempting to let the imagination wander into the deepest recesses of the wildwood of mossesWith winter almost over it’s tempting to hunker down during these last cold days...
View ArticleCountry diary: this landscape has little to offer a shy fieldfare
Crook, County Durham: starving birds lose their inhibitions if apples are available in gardensThe steep climb from the start of the Deerness Valley Way follows the route of an old rope-worked incline...
View ArticleCountry diary: the sap also rises, drips from wounds and gives nourishment
Wolsingham, Weardale: swelling buds signal the hydraulic forces that have been building inside treesThe dead leaf on the sycamore stump opened its wings and revealed itself to be a comma butterfly...
View ArticleCountry diary: primroses are so much more than pretty flowers
Saltwell Gill, Durham city: A swathe of wildlings in a wood was a spectacle to make the spirits soar after a long, cold winterThis meandering stream, a mile south of the city centre, has carved a...
View ArticleCountry diary: lapwings do their courting to the tune of creaky doors
Salter’s Gate, Weardale: Having performed her provocative display, the female seems to ignore the suitor with his bandit eye-stripeThe sky above this open hillside, overlooking Tunstall reservoir in...
View ArticleCountry diary: willow warblers soundtrack a stoat sighting
Romaldkirk, Teesdale: Lithe and lethal, the stoat emerged into a patch of bare ground, sniffed the air, then vanished into a dense patch of wild garlicThe warm weather arrived, and with it willow...
View ArticleCountry diary: an old bird cherry tree that supports a profusion of new life
Wolsingham, Durham: There are aphids, hoverflies, spiders and beetles, but where are the small ermine moth caterpillars?Five years ago we rounded a bend in the Weardale Way footpath and discovered that...
View ArticleCountry diary: the glorious fauna of a north Pennine meadow
Mickleton, Teesdale: Flowering grasses are an ethereal presence, graceful and constantly movingAt the eastern end of the viaduct that carries the Tees railway path across the River Lune there is a hay...
View ArticleCountry diary: A daddy-longlegs and its eggs have a narrow escape
Crook, County Durham:Pholcus has a reputation for preying on other spiders, by entering their webs and vibrating, imitating struggles of a snared flyWhen I leaned the steps against the conservatory...
View ArticleCountry diary: carp find their quarry but become easy prey in the shallows
Stanhope, Weardale: A watchful heron awaits his moment as the fish introduced to this former industrial landscape gorge on a rich supply of damselfly nymphsIn the heat of yet another cloudless summer...
View ArticleCountry diary: lovely lavender works its charm
Crook, County Durham: A dozen green-veined and small white butterflies flit restlessly between flower heads, pausing just long enough to uncoil their tongues and probe a floretTwo o’clock in the...
View ArticleCountry diary: a blackbird entranced by the sun
Crook, Co Durham: Do the birds spread their wings out in the heat to shake off lice, boost oil secretion, or simply revel in the rays?I guessed that the intermittent rustling sound under the beech...
View ArticleCountry diary: a close encounter with a wood mouse
Crook, Co Durham: The mouse took a while to find the hazelnuts I’d left out for it, approaching by a cautious, roundabout route before grabbing one and dashing to safetyI rarely see wood mice (Apodemus...
View ArticleCountry diary: delving deeper into crab apples' DNA
Bishop Auckland, County Durham: Most candidates are descended from discarded cores of domesticated orchard apples, complex hybrids whose ancestors came from the Tian Shan mountains of KazakhstanGenuine...
View ArticleCountry diary: a butterfly boom out of the barren land
Crook, County Durham: Fast-forward half a century and few casual visitors would suspect that this was once a scene of industrial derelictionLocal people with a long memory can recall the time when this...
View ArticleCountry diary: a rocket propelled by wind and water
Roker beach, Sunderland: Sea rocket, with its lilac-coloured flowers, thrives in the sand in the toughest of seaside environmentsThe tide had turned and I walked up from the water’s edge, past tangled...
View ArticleCountry diary: these wrinkled rock stars are boring little molluscs
Whitburn Rocks, Sunderland: Tunnelling into the soft limestone helps them avoid predators, but they can grow too big to escape their sarcophagusSmall boulders at the top of this beach are often drilled...
View ArticleCountry diary: the dry summer has left fish dangerously exposed
Tunstall valley, Weardale: Streams have become mere trickles and a third of the reservoir is still mudSix months ago, when I stood on this bridge over Waskerley beck, which flows from the head of the...
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