Country diary: the spiderlings are under wraps
Bishop Auckland, County Durham: This nursery web spider has woven a protective nursery around a folded burdock leafLast week I spotted a nursery web spider crouching in a fleck of sunlight in the...
View ArticleCountry diary: this forgotten grassland is a butterfly Serengeti
Low Willington, County Durham: Small skippers, ringlets and small heaths are thriving here – the bright wings of summerIf I give my imagination free rein on this sultry afternoon, I could almost...
View ArticleCountry diary: fill your nose with the cornucopia of July scents
Wolsingham, Weardale, North Pennines: Smell can be so specific – the fragrance of meadowsweet blossom reminds me of my late aunt PatThe hottest day of summer so far, in an exceptionally fine week for...
View ArticleCountry diary: mesmerised by the courting ritual of the semaphore flies
Crook, Country Durham: in an aquarium at the end of my garden, the female fly reacts with splendid indifference to a frantic whirling dance from her suitorIt might be the glint of sunlight on water...
View ArticleCountry diary: with luck, a peacock butterfly’s life is not so fleeting
Hamsterley Forest, County Durham: These are not such ephemeral creatures. They can live for nine months, if they survive predatory insects and birdsThe peacock butterfly caterpillars feeding on the...
View ArticleCountry diary: the unbroken blue sky ushers in a day full of promise
St John’s Chapel, County Durham: The Weardale agricultural show returns after a Covid-enforced breakDays like this, with unbroken blue sky and not even the faintest whisper of wind, are rare on Chapel...
View ArticleCountry diary: It’s worth getting your knees wet for these insect-eating...
Tunstall Valley, Weardale: The round-leaved sundews were making a meal out of mosquitoes, beetles and a cranefly’s legAt the end of an exceptionally warm month, with barely enough rain to dampen dusty...
View ArticleCountry diary: The caterpillar that sways to the rhythm of the trees
Brancepeth, County Durham: The poplar hawk-moth caterpillar loves hanging around aspens almost as much as I doI can hear the sound of the aspen, like fast-flowing water rippling over a gravelly stream...
View ArticleCountry diary: A frightful fungus worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe tale
Blaid’s Wood, Durham: Fungi season has brought me out in search of two otherworldly speciesI have come on an annual pilgrimage, this autumn afternoon, along a muddy track under a tunnel of trees, in...
View ArticleCountry diary: A wood mouse makes it a day to remember
Crook, County Durham: An unexpected encounter with a twilight-loving rodent is the bright spot in an otherwise dull dayThe worst kind of November dawn: leaden clouds, lashing rain, rivulets meandering...
View ArticleCountry diary: The unenviable life of the noon fly
Wolsingham, Weardale: These important and rather beautiful insects are dependent to a large degree on the defecating cowA month ago, we took a detour from this footpath, wide around a bull and his...
View ArticleCountry diary: The boulevard of bullfinches always delivers | Country diary
Brancepeth, County Durham: This photogenic family made it through the storms and will stay together all winterOn my personal memory map of favourite local walks, this tree-lined former railway line is...
View ArticleCountry diary: Fulmars so close, you almost catch their eye
Chourdon Point, County Durham: While storms and the sea chew away at these cliffs, a wealth of wildlife blows into viewI’m standing near the cliff edge, on a narrow strip of wild, unmanaged grassland...
View ArticleCountry diary: In this buffeting wind, we are light as lichen spores
Chapel fell, Weardale: Giddy from the gales, we lean against a stone wall. Something here is in its elementThe weather for today’s walk, judged according to Sir Francis Beaufort’s wind force scale,...
View ArticleCountry diary: Tiny conifer saplings grow where the giants fell
Hamsterley Forest, County Durham: There is probably no one alive who remembers these windswept hillsides before it was a plantationFootsore, we reached the ruins of Metcalf’s House that, until the...
View ArticleCountry diary: This vegetable garden intruder is easy on the eye, hard on the...
Crook, County Durham: It’s not just the creeping buttercup that demands attention from me and my spadeThis will hurt tomorrow morning, warns my ageing back. But it’s a year since the vegetable patch...
View ArticleCountry diary: Where floodwater meets the rising tide
Wylam, Northumberland: The heron and cormorants are filling their beaks here, downstream from the Pennines where there’s almost no currentIt must be high tide at Tynemouth, 19 miles away, where the...
View ArticleCountry diary: Winter is loosening its grip as spring takes flight
Tunstall valley, Weardale: Curlews are returning to the dale, and it is a joyous sightThe first day of meteorological spring has passed, but spring pays little heed to the calendar; it tiptoes in with...
View ArticleCountry diary: Do feeders bring out aggression in birds?
Wolsingham, Weardale: The quiet, busy siskins I see on the alders could almost be another species from the belligerent ones at the feederBarely a breath of wind this morning, but the branches of an...
View ArticleCountry diary: My 40-year love affair with these breeding toads
Tunstall Valley, Weardale: They’re back, in great numbers, returning to their ancestral breeding pond. There’s something very reassuring about itDusk on a pleasantly mild spring evening, and the air is...
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